It was the night before the Final Fantasy XIII Xbox 360 announcement and Yoichi Wada was in a motel bathroom in the outskirts of L.A. with a gun in his mouth. Known amongst industry insiders as "The Million Year Long Night," it was at this time that Wada had realized just how over budget the FFXIII project was. He had given in to the American intruder on the games market. Wada had resisted them for one gen, but the board hounded him to submit after Kutaragi's final error. "I will never give in! My father would never allow it!" he'd shout at them in fits of rage during the more tense meetings. But the stubborn board was more interested in money and NPD numbers. Wada never quite fully shifted over to the idea of supporting the 360, even after the company released some titles on it. He'd defend the 100 copies of Infinite Undiscovery sold worldwide by saying that Playstation gamers had taste and it would have sold half as much on the PS3. He had even given them an online Final Fantasy title, knowing he could still write it off as "not a true FF game."
But now, the last threads of attachment to Square-Enix and this Earth slipped through Wada's fingers. He held his composure long enough, green-lighting production of the title through clenched teeth. The project had suffered enough setbacks. After they found out a member of the localization staff had been seduced by a NeoGAF moderator, who was printing vague details about when the next trailer might be shown on her blog, production came to a halt for 2 years. In fact, the only thing that unfroze it was the decision to make a 360 version.
The trigger on the pistol cocked back and immediately after, his cellphone rang. Wada, with tears in his eyes knowing that fate was intervening in his departure from waking life, looked down at his phone. It was Nomura.
"Hey buddy, I know how you feel. Don't worry, we'll get through this. And besides, we're gonna make it 3 discs and run at a lower resolution with shitty FMV. The Americans won't know the difference."
Wada had to admit he was relieved. He put the gun away and went to sleep. He would head for E3 at the break of daylight the next morning.
