FFXIII Gets Japan Release Date, International Launch 'Spring 2010'

Square Enix will release much-anticipated Final Fantasy XIII in Japan on December 17 for PlayStation 3, the publisher confirmed today, with a Western window targeting Spring 2010. The large Japanese-headquartered publisher made the announcement during a premiere event in Tokyo covered by consumer weblog Kotaku. Including tax, the game will be priced at ¥9240 ($100), one of the higher prices thus far charged for a console game release, even one as long-awaited as FFXIII, the thirteenth main installment in the publisher's seminal RPG franchise. The considerable gap between the game's Japanese release and its release in the West is likely due at least in part to the publisher's surprising decision to break traditional Final Fantasy PlayStation exclusivity with a release on both PS3 and Xbox 360 for FFXIII in North America and Europe. In the E3 press briefing announcing the multiplatform Western release, Squre Enix's Shinji Hashimoto explained that the game will be developed first on the PS3, and released in Japan; it will then be ported to the Xbox 360 while it's being localized for the North American and European markets. Hashimoto commented at the time that the main reason for the move to port the game to Xbox 360 for the Western market is "the market situation in U.S. and Europe", noting that platform-exclusive content was not planned at that time.