I’m sure many of you like myself feel disappointed when major games such as Final Fantasy XIII gets released first in Japan, and then waits for a couple of months before hitting the international market. Square Enix’s president and CEO Yoichi Wada promises that for future releases, his company will strive for simultaneous worldwide releases.

Here’s a quote for his recent interview with Ars Technica:

“For the last three years, we have worked very hard to close the gap between Japanese release timing and North American and European release timing,” Wada said. “We tried to go for the global, simultaneous release but that was something that was inconceivable, in a sense. But we have been able to close that release window gap to three months. For us, it was a very big step forward.”

In the future, Wada says that these kinds of games, which are released so close to one another, will actually be held back in Japan to make way for a simultaneous worldwide release. However, FFXIII was an exception.

“We couldn’t delay it any longer,” he said, with a laugh.

Source: Ars Technica via Kotaku

Actually if they just used the original Japanese voice with English subtitles, the game could be released much faster for the international market. I don’t really care for English voice dubs anyway.