FFXIII Release Date Announcement Confirmed By YouTube

Final Fantasy XIII's release date is going to be announced today. All of Japan now knows this for sure because of an ad that started appearing at, of all sites, YouTube:

This is what you see now when you access YouTube from Japan. Previously, Sony had those darn Playface ads on the site.

The ad says "Release date, at last announced today."

For those not in Japan, I'm pretty sure you won't be able to see the ad, so you'll have to take my word for it -- the above is what I saw when I visited the site just now.

Previous unconfirmed reports suggested that Square Enix would be announcing release information Tuesday evening at a premier event in Odaiba. This advertisement appears to confirm those reports.

Looks like the long wait is almost at an end!

[UPDATE: Some people tinkered around with the URLs and got something that appears to be confirmation of a December 17 release date. See for yourself via this before link and this after link (these both link to the same server at YouTube, so this does appear to be legit). ]

The YouTube ad is actually pretty neat. It's like a miniature version of the Final Fantasy XIII site. You can view profiles of Lightning, Snow, Vanille, Sazh, Hope and the Nora crew, and even view a trailer right in the body of the ad!

FFXIII looks pretty neat in super extreme wide screen format.

I'm not sure if the trailer is new or not, but I'm watching it over and over again to make sure that I can scrutinize any differences that might show up if Square Enix shows a trailer at the premier event tonight.