Square Enix
The colorful characters of "Final Fantasy XII."
That's huge for one crucial reason: "Final Fantasy XII" is the only major "Final Fantasy" game that still hasn't made the jump to HD consoles.
The news comes from orchestra conductor Arnie Roth, who let slip word of a "Final Fantasy XII" release on modern consoles during a "Distant Worlds" concert on August 1 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Distant Worlds concerts are an orchestral presentation of music from the entire "Final Fantasy" series, and the August 1 show had "Final Fantasy XII" composer Hitoshi Sakimoto in attendance.
Final Fantasy Network found a video of Roth mentioning the release as a "remake" and put it up on YouTube, which we've embedded here:
The release of "Final Fantasy XII" hasn't been confirmed yet by the game's publisher, Square Enix. In fact, the "remake" may not be a "remake" at all, but an HD "remaster." There's a crucial difference: "remake" means the game is being re-built from the ground up, whereas "remaster" means it's getting prettied up to work on HD game consoles. More importantly, a "remaster" requires much less investment - both in time and money - from the company making it.
We've reached out to Square Enix and we'll update this story when we learn more.