Nice thread.
Characters: What we know so far.
Lightning (Codename): A gunblade (gunsword) weilding girl dress in white and is very athletic.
Blond Guy: A seemingly tall guy, blond and grey coat, who first appeared in the Cloud DVD Trailer, he his seen riding a motorcycle (Likely to be shiva) and weilding multiple firearms such as somekind of Gun (Laser Gun seemingly, trailer) & Rocket Launcher (Screenshot)
Pigtail Girl: Red Headed Pigtail Girls showing up in a natif/primitif area summoning a Carbuncle from a disc
All theses characters appeared before the Xbox 360 Multi-Platform Announcement.
(This just in, Square-Enix declared the disc was a BD
)