14 DAY TRIAL // Square Enix, the Japanese developer and publisher responsible for high profile franchises like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, has announced that it has shipped around 1 million copies of Final Fantasy XIII to retailers in Japan, where the role playing experience is set to be released, exclusively for the PlayStation 3 home gaming console from Sony, on December 17. The company is expecting to move another batch of 1.3 million units to stores in the first week during which the game will be on shelves.
Final Fantasy XIII will cost no less than 9,240 Yen in Japan, which is the equivalent of about 100 dollars, quite a high price for a videogame, especially considering the limited disposable income potential players have to spend because of the economic crisis that is still gripping the world.
Square Enix is probably betting that long time fans of the Final Fantasy series, who have been waiting for a new full installment since 2006, will pick up the title regardless of the price tag while other gamers will buy it after some time, when it becomes somewhat cheaper.
Final Fantasy XIII is set to arrive on Western markets at the end of spring 2010. The main reason behind the time gap is the decision made by Square Enix to release the game for the Xbox 360 platform from Microsoft as well as on the PS3.
Translation and voice work for the narrative will also take some time. Gamers who pick the game up on Blu-ray will probably have an option to listen to the original Japanese dialog, which might not appear on the Xbox 360 because of limited disk space.
When Final Fantasy XII was launched in 2006, Square Enix shipped 2 million units to retailers but the figure was so big mainly because of the higher installed base of the PlayStation 2.