Final Fantasy XIII Appears on Xbox Japan Site

[Keane Ng]

Final Fantasy XIII Appears on Xbox Japan Site

For a brief moment last night a page for Final Fantasy XIII appeared on the official Japanese Xbox site. Was it simply a clumsy mistake, or is the game possibly not so PS3-exclusive in Japan?

Either some hapless intern over at Xbox Japan HQ just got fired, or some puppet master marketer is playing us in the palm of his or her hand. For a brief magical instant last night, Final Fantasy XIII appeared on the official Xbox site. Not just any official Xbox site. The Japanese official Xbox site. You might recall that, unlike the rest of the world, only the PS3 is getting FFXIII in Japan.

So, why, then would the game suddenly have a page on Xbox's Japan site? Microsoft said it was all just a mistake. "The FFXIII page you pointed out was actually accidentally uploaded onto the Kotaku [http://www.xbox.com/ja-JP/games/f/finalfantasyXIII/details.page/]. "There is no change to what has already been announced that this title will be released in North America and Europe."

So there just happened to be a Final Fantasy XIII screenshots, a trailer and a banner with Japanese lettering on it (lettering I'll point out is absent from the logo [http://na.square-enix.com/ff13/] for the game in the West) that ended up mistakenly on the Japanese site?

I understand that sometimes the tiniest errors lead to big mistakes when it comes to running a website, and that the assets on the page could've been intended for the Western Xbox.com page. But the presence of that banner with the Japanese logo is nagging me - that couldn't have been meant for any other page than a Japanese FFXIII one, right? Not to mention that the PR quote above only makes mention of no changes for the NA and EU release, but nothing of Japan, which is really the issue here. Maybe I'm just spinning conspiracy theories here. Maybe I'm just crazy [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8th2J3c88mU]. That's what they tell me sometimes.


Permalink

 

[Trivun]

Keane, you're crazy. Then again, why not release for the 360 in Japan when they're doing t for the NA and EU releases? That would be silly, I still think. Obviously there's somebody who made a mistake and let something slip. I'm guessing MS and Square-Enix want it to be a big surprise...

 

[Keane Ng]

Keane, you're crazy.

I knew it!!

 

[D_987]

Sounds like it'll be a timed PS3 exclusive in Japan then; there's certainly something going on apparently the same thing happened regarding Tales of Vesperia on the German site before it was announced the game would be coming to Europe. (Source : A poster on Kotaku xD).

Just the fact they changed the logo certainly shows somethings up.

 

[Keane Ng]

How on earth did anyone notice this? How many people would be likely to be checking the Japanese Xbox site before they noticed their mistake?

Where did this actually come from?

On the internet, someone is always doing something, at all times.

 

[John Funk]

How on earth did anyone notice this? How many people would be likely to be checking the Japanese Xbox site before they noticed their mistake?

Where did this actually come from?

On the internet, someone is always doing something, at all times.

Including checking the Japanese Xbox site? The probability of that is exceedingly low.

Apparently not low enough.

 

[D_987]

How on earth did anyone notice this? How many people would be likely to be checking the Japanese Xbox site before they noticed their mistake?

Where did this actually come from?

On the internet, someone is always doing something, at all times.

Including checking the Japanese Xbox site? The probability of that is exceedingly low.

What are you trying to infer?

 

[Pendragon9]

Hmm... probably a slipup or timed exclusive. My money is on the first.

In the states, the XBOX is doing great so they would bring FF13 over to it. But in Japan it's sales are piss poor.

Don't listen to the saps who say it's outselling everything else there. They don't know a thing.

 

[Ashbax]

Id say they accidentally did it while uploading the pic to 'all sites except japanese one' And some eejit did the japanese one also Dont tease the japanese! Only we can do that by waving our xbox copies of FFXIII When it comes out!

 

[yeah_so_no]

How on earth did anyone notice this? How many people would be likely to be checking the Japanese Xbox site before they noticed their mistake?

Where did this actually come from?

On the internet, someone is always doing something, at all times.

Including checking the Japanese Xbox site? The probability of that is exceedingly low.

Because there are no bilingual people living in Japan, noooooo....

OH WAIT.

Dude, I'm on Atlus's, Nintendo's, and Square Enix's JAPANESE sites all the time, what with me living over here and buying my games over here and wanting to know release dates and stuff. And seeing as I know more than a few American and Europeans living here who also game like mad, I daresay there are quite a few native or fluent English speakers reading the Japanese sites. And thus, stories like this one.

The chances are not as low as you seem to think they are.

Also, yeah, it looks like it might have just been a goof, since SE's Japanese homepage still only lists it as PS3 (and still no frickin' release date, ARGH).

 

[yeah_so_no]

Okay, fair enough, I hadn't considered that part.[/quote]

And there are a lot of other reasons as well (I admit that the one that first came to my mind is the one that fits my own situation, which is living abroad)--bilingual people are all over the world. And if it's not a stretch that English gaming sites get info on articles in Famitsu, it's not really going to be a stretch that people are checking the Japanese websites for updates and info as well, and thanks to time zones seeing something that would have shown up at ungodly-o'clock in Japan and therefore wouldn't have even been noticed over here because it would have been fixed first.

 

[S.H.A.R.P.]

I don't think I get it. Say for a moment this wasn't a slip up. Japanese gamers will eventually get FFXIII on the xbox... What does that have to do with us? Or is the game currently a PS3 exclusive in the West too, which might imply that Xbox players in the West can eventually play the game?

 

[Brotherofwill]

Seems like a publicity stunt to me.

Not sure why anyone would care, the 2 people that have a box in Japan and want this game are probably considering to get a PS3 to get the earlier release date.