Final Fantasy XIII Not Due Overseas Until 2010

[Jared Rea]

Final Fantasy XIII Not Due Overseas Until 2010

Did you feel that? It's as if millions of voices suddenly cried out and were just as quickly silenced as the Japanese RPG giant, Square-Enix, lays out its international plans.

In order to best provide you with information as to when you will be playing Square-Enix's highly-anticipated role-playing title, Final Fantasy XIII [http://www.square-enix.co.jp/fabula/ff13/], we've prepared a simple quiz as to avoid all possible confusion.

Question: Where do you live?

A) Japan
B) Not-Japan

If you answered "A," Japan, we have great news to share with you. Square-Enix plans to release Final Fantasy XIII in your wonderful island nation for the PlayStation 3 by the end of 2009. If you answered "B," not-Japan, we have horrible, dreadful news. Reuters reports [http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/8259189] that the company does not intend to ship Final Fantasy XIII internationally until at least the start of their next fiscal year, which begins April 2010.

The reason for this is not simply one of localization, but of its vaunted multi-platform release. While Final Fantasy XIII is a PlayStation 3 exclusive for Japan, it will be made available for the Xbox 360 as well in the North American and European markets. In a report filed in July 2008 by Wired [http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/07/final-fantasy-1.html], Square-Enix president Yoichi Wada made it clear that work would not begin on the Xbox 360 edition of the game until the PlayStation 3 edition was completed and localized for international markets. As Square-Enix intends to release the two versions simultaneously outside of Japan, the world must wait until both Microsoft and Sony have their wares ready.

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[meatloaf231]

I smell a vast number of imports a-coming.

 

[Marv21]

I've never played a FF game before!

Just thought I would say that!

 

[DeleteMe1112311]

Guess what game I'm not going to buy?

I'll buy it if they release it at the same time otherwise I'll find some way to pirate it just out of spite. Probably wont even bother playing it afterward.

On a side note: Now I know how Australia feels. At least I wouldent have to pay an extra $50 on all games.

 

[Peach_hat]

Guess what game I'm not going to buy?

You and me both.

 

[Ophiuchus]

At least it'll give us plenty of time to see if it's any good. By which I mean 'less like FF12 and more like FF7/8/9'.

 

[Doug]

I always find this bizzare - why do the Japanese launch in their own country years before the rest of the world? US/UK/Europe companies usually release in under a month from the US/UK/Europe release date. Sure, its annoying, but still way better than this.

 

[minarri]

I always find this bizzare - why do the Japanese launch in their own country years before the rest of the world?

Because they can.


Also I didn't think the end of 2009 and April 2010 are years apart, thank you for correcting my misconception.

 

[Doug]

I always find this bizzare - why do the Japanese launch in their own country years before the rest of the world?

Because they can.


Also I didn't think the end of 2009 and April 2010 are years apart, thank you for correcting my misconception.

See, now, if EA or someone did this they'd get more stick than a wood galleon.

Australia is a special case as they have censorship laws that border on facism.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Final Fantasy games always come out 6 months or so later everywhere outside of Japan, because they finish them, release, them, then translate them.

 

[bioVOLTAGE]

Yeah, Thats a real kick to the teeth. I've been waiting for this game for three years already. Oh well. I wonder how long it's going to take for people to blame Microsoft for all this and go on about how the PS3 is better?

 

[Murmur95]

I always find this bizzare - why do the Japanese launch in their own country years before the rest of the world? US/UK/Europe companies usually release in under a month from the US/UK/Europe release date. Sure, its annoying, but still way better than this.

They are basically play testing the game on a large scale.

What i don't understand is why are they waiting to release the PS3 version when its done...people with the xbox can wait till april and they should release the PS3 version as soon as they can...

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

Now I'm really annoyed at the ExBAwks release, ah well, plenty of other good RPG's coming out in '09.

 

[Phantom2595]

Fucking Xbox release!

YEA!

Sony will probably pay to release it as a timed exclusive at least.

 

[Mr.Bubbles43]

So the ps3 game is basically done, but we are waiting for the game to get made on a different console so we can play it on the ps3. Makes perfect fucking sense...

 

[darrinwright]

dammit.

 

[Jumplion]

Yeah, Thats a real kick to the teeth. I've been waiting for this game for three years already. Oh well. I wonder how long it's going to take for people to blame Microsoft for all this and go on about how the PS3 is better?

For some reason, I morbidly think people will blame it the other way around. They'll forget that it's being developed for the Ps3 first and say that it's delayed because "the PS3 is hard to develop for guise!"

But I think I'm allowed to bash MS right now for this specific situation and not be bashed myself, god damn multiplat-release! As GloatingSwine said, FF games do come out a few months after the Japanese release but that doesn't mean that I can't hate MS for making the production time longer!

DAMN YOU JAPAN AND YOUR DELAYS!! By the by, does anyone have any actual gameplay footage of FFXIII?

 

[Aura Guardian]

Guess what game I'm not going to buy?

You and me both.

Add me and that's three.

 

[curlycrouton]

I've never played a FF game before!

Just thought I would say that!

Join the club. We don't have cookies, but we have little sticks of shortbread that taste a bit like cookies. They're called shortbread apparently, but they're not so short. I've seen shorter cookies, put it that way.

Anyway yes, I haven't played any Final Fantasy games either.