The recent announcement of Final Fantasy XIII’s new multiplatform release in Japan has been met with…more than a little hostility. Unfortunately, Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada has been taking the brunt of the attack for the announcement.
Everyone expected Final Fantasy XIII to come out eventually. That’s what Square Enix does. But at E3 2008 they dropped a bombshell with Microsoft that Final Fantasy XIII would be launching on the Xbox 360. Quick to prepare against the fallout against the backlash, SE confirmed that FF13 would be staying a PS3 exclusive in Japan. Turns out that the malice of Sony devotees across the world were no match for the hatred of their fanboys in the Land of the Rising Sun. After the announcement, Yoichi Wada has been receiving comments of pure venom on Twitter. While most of the tweets have been merely in disbelief or scorn, some have even gone to call Wada a liar, a money grubber and treacherous.
Even with the English voice acting option and the newly introduced Easy Mode, I don’t understand why Japan has a problem with this at all. First, the country saw the game in December of 2009. The game has already seen its course on the PS3. Why would releasing it new sell any more copies? We saw the release of Tales of Vesperia on the 360 and then its re-release on the PlayStation 3. That did well only because the PS3 dominates the market share in Japan. So why bother porting an incredibly expensive game to a console that has virtually no fanbase at all? The Japanese public should just see this and laugh instead of getting upset. Oh well.
[Source]
