FFXIII PS2 Cost Square-Enix A Year-And-A-Half

Final Fantasy XIII was not originally destined for this generation of consoles. Yoshinori Kitase, FFXIII’s producer, recently revealed that Square-Enix’s RPG was destined for the PlayStation 2. This version of the game cost the developer a big chunk of development time.

“Final Fantasy XIII was originally meant to be a PS2 title, but we had to switch systems due to the arrival of the PS3,” Kitase said in an interview with Official PlayStation Magazine.

"That cost us about one-and-a-half years and was constantly a case of trial and error," Kitase continued. "However, because we worked so hard at the beginning, we got to a cruising speed much faster than anticipated and therefore could start on the translation and international voice recording process at an early stage of the development.

"It’s because of this that we can release both the European as well as the American version barely three months after the Japanese release."

Final Fantasy XIII releases on March 9. With buzz for the game reaching a fever pitch, it’s interesting to think about an alternative history where FFXIII came out in fall of 2008. Would new IPs such as Dead Space and Mirror’s Edge had room to grow if a juggernaut like Final Fantasy had hit at the same time?

Source: Official PlayStation Magazine [Via VG247]