![]()
Yesterday, Yoichi Wada (President of Square Enix) fielded questions about Final Fantasy XIII's future release date due to the delay of Dragon Quest IX and the news wasn't necessarily good. The purpose of this article is to analyse what his statements actually mean from a consumer's perspective as it probably isn't good news on the whole.
Dragon Quest IX was supposed to come out in the fiscal year of 2009. Fiscal years run from April to March, so the Fiscal year of 2009 runs from April 08 to March 09. What this means is that Dragon Quest IX is now going to be released in the fiscal year of 2010, when Final Fantasy XIII was scheduled to come out. Square Enix had planned for them to come out in different fiscal years, as they are the company's prospective biggest earning titles and would produce the largest amount of revenue. However, DQIX's delay has scuppered these plans.
Prior to yesterday, Wada confidently told everyone that Final Fantasy XIII would definitely be out in 2009 in Japan. However, yesterday he said that Dragon Quest IX's delay could impact on Final Fantasy XIII's release. This doesn't sound overly promising, as this could mean the game is pushed back to a 2010 release in Japan, and it could even come out in the fiscal year of 2011 if necessary.
Looking at Final Fantasy XII as an example, the localisation took from March to October, and it was then released in February the following year in Europe. If the worst case scenario happens, and Final Fantasy XIII isn't released in Japan until after April 2010, this would more than likely mean that Europe won't see this game until 2011.
Hopefully this won't happen, and Square Enix will listen to their consumers as opposed to their shareholders with regards to when they decide to release Final Fantasy XIII.