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Final Fantasy XIII, due out on the PS3 and Xbox 360 on March 9, seems to have been in development for an eternity. Today, we know what at least one-and-a-half years of that development time were spent on: making the game on PS2.
That’s right. FFXIII was originally in development for the PS2, but was moved over to the PS3 following the announcement of the console.
That, according to an interview with producer Yoshonori Kitase from the Official PlayStation Magazine Benelux (that’s Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg geography fans), scanned and translated by FF-XIII.net, cost the development team “a year-and-a-half”.
“Final Fantasy XIII was originally meant to be a PS2 title, but we had to switch systems due to the arrival of the PS3,” said Kitase.
“That cost us about one and a half years and was constantly a case of trial and error. However, because we worked so hard at the beginning, we got to a cruising speed much faster then 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.”
There are even some dodgy magazine scans of the game running on the PS2 doing the rounds.
You can expect a hands-on preview of the International version of the game early next week.