Dragon Quest IX delay could affect Final Fantasy XIII -- Yoichi Wada

Square Enix president Yoichi Wada fielded questions at a financial briefing today, and obviously Dragon Quest IX's delay was the big topic of conversation. But Final Fantasy XIII was also brought up, according to this report at ITMedia.

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It appears that DQIX's delay could affect FFXIII's release. Regarding the release of the PS3 title, Wada said, "It may be affected by Dragon Quest IX's delay. We'd like to work towards (a release) within fiscal 2009."

He added, ""We've yet to finalize our plans for the next term, so I cannot say for sure if there will or will not be an effect, but Dragon Quest's release being March or July changes the premise. I can't say that there won't be an influence."

Outside of the FFXIII repercussions, Wada also touched upon the reason behind the DQIX delay. "We were unable to complete debugging on time," he said. Following the implementation of the game's features and the start of the true debugging phase, "We determined that there was a major bug."

Regarding the size of the bug, "It was definitely not in a state that could be delivered to players."

Wada admitted becoming "negligent" with the project once all the major features were in place. However, he went on to explain, this isn't necessarily a Dragon Quest-specific problem. It may actually be a problem with the standard debugging process itself. Like most companies, explained Wada, Square Enix follows the development pattern of implementing features while clearing out bugs, completing implementation, then doing a big debugging phase at the end. Wada said that the company may have to look into doing debugging during the implementation phase as well.

The ITmedia article also notes that Square Enix was expecting sales of Dragon Quest IX to reach three million just in this term. As noted in this story on the main channel, the DQIX delay contributed to downward earnings revisions for the company.