Many have felt this coming for a while now, but Square made it official today. According to Famitsu.com, Square has opted to let the Japanese release date slide, pushing the title back to July 2001. The game had previously been slated for a Spring 2001 release, but given that the first real shots of the gameplay just appeared days ago, that date was more than a little optomistic.

Gamers.com lists the offical reason from Square for the delay as wanting to "Release FFX in a shape that used the full specs of PlayStation 2... we wanted to increase the quality of the product. Therefore, we delayed the release of this game."

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. With the extra time, there's no doubt that Square will be tweaking the game until it's the best it can be. The US hasn't had a solid release date set yet, but unless both Japanese and English versions are progressing simultaneously (a la The Bouncer), this could mean US audiences won't see Square's frist franchise on the PS2 until 2002.

To add to this, Square also announced they're predicting a loss of $29.1 million (3.4 billion yen) for the fiscal year. Not stunning in and of itself, after all many companies have posted losses at some point or other over the past year. Even games giant Namco announced they were losing money. What IS surprising about the numbers is how wildly they swang around from earlier predictions of a $21.4 million (2.5 billion yen) profit.

For those wondering why Square is still predicting a loss and not announcing one for the year 2000 (it is the tail end of January after all), remember that this is for the fiscal year, which ends in March of 2001.