Final Fantasy Versus XIII on hold, new Kingdom Hearts games seeing progress

A lot of you out there may be very excited about Square Enix‘s upcoming event this August 2 and 3 in hopes of seeing more stuff related to Final Fantasy Versus XIII, but don’ get your hopes way up high because you might get disappointed. The game’s development has been placed on hold to allow team members to concentrate on higher priorities. More details about that and the rest of Square Enix’s projects after the jump.

A report from Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu has brought us a bucketload of new details about Square Enix and the games currently in development by the company. Don’t look now, but it seems that Tetsuya Nomura‘s Final Fantasy Versus XIII is taking a back seat to Final Fantasy XIII which is being overseen by colleague Yoshinori Kitase.

In other Square Enix news, updates about the handheld incarnations of Kingdom Hearts were also put forward. Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep for the PSP and Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 for the Nintendo DS seem to be moving along pretty well. They aren’t close to gold, but they’re on their way there.

In any case, here’s the bulk of what’s been reported by Famitsu:

• DKΣ3713 is a private show so for the general public that wants to see and play the games; TGS in October will feature more new information.
• The event will be at the same format as previous S-E events, with closed theatre as well as playable booths outside.
• Birth by Sleep will be playable for the first time at the event.
• Despite the news that Square Enix was going to scale back from Mobile development, it appears that Kingdom Hearts: Coded, 3rd Birthday and Agito XIII will still be going ahead.
• Agito XIII seems to be facing serious development issues at the moment. There is a huge worldview and historical timeline.
• The director of Agito XIII is doing the outline of the entire story synopsis himself now, development is still in early stages.
• Versus XIII is on hold until FFXIII is done, because the entire Versus team is helping to finish Final Fantasy XIII at the moment. It is number one priority.
• While the planners and programmers are all working on Final Fantasy XIII, the Versus project is getting the designers to work on a lot of image illustrations and conceptual visuals. The story for Versus is also pretty much complete.
• Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days is being tuned and balanced, but it is not quite as polished as Dissidia yet. They’ll be taking feedback from the playable demo.
• Birth by Sleep is not anywhere close to a final build, but Nomura wants to let people get a chance to try it out first.
• Advent Children Complete might finally be close to getting a release date.

Via Firever Fantasy