Haha, WTF? I suppose that explains why the storytelling in FFXIII is reportedly so piss poor and why FFXII was virtually like an offline MMO.
Thank Christ that their (Western world) Eidos studios are pretty much autonomous of the execs in Tokyo. Deus Ex 3: Human Revolution would probably be like a zillion times worse than DX2: Invisible War otherwise.
I've heard that FFXIII takes like 20-25 hours before it becomes good and that the storytelling is incredibly poor, completely lacking in exposition. If you want to know the background info, you apparently have to read an ungodly amount of text in an encyclopaedia-esque tome. LOL, if your game takes 20-25 hours to become interesting then you've failed at your job, regardless of the genre.
The reason I never picked it up was because the lack of japanese voices, but all the criticisms aimed at the game since it was released made sure I haven't regretted it. I guess all the real talent that was once at Square Enix has left the company years ago...
I was there, the big BNB blackout of november, 2008. We lost many that day...