http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/630/630782p1.html

Square Enix 360 Update
Comments from team Final Fantasy XI.
by Anoop Gantayat
July 1, 2005 - Two Square Enix insiders who are working on the Xbox 360 
version of Final Fantasy XI are featured in an interview in the latest issue 
of Famitsu Xbox. Executive Producer Hiromichi Tanaka reveals that, for Xbox 
360 FFXI, he's most excited about the European market, as the game will be 
making its console debut on the 360 there. Meanwhile, programmer Yasuhiro 
Yamamoto reveals that development on the game is at 55%, with all graphics 
work finished.


Yamamoto states that development on the 360 version of FFXI started two or 
three months prior to E3 -- at around February or March of this year. The 
game was ported over from the Windows version smoothly, and at the time of 
E3, development was far enough that players could log into a server and move 
around.
It's known that Square Enix originally had plans to bring FFXI to the 
original Xbox. According to Tanaka, development on the game's Xbox version 
began a year or so after the Xbox launched. Had development continued, 
Square Enix could have launched the game at the start of the Xbox Live 
service.

Commenting on the upcoming beta test, Tanaka confirms that Square Enix is 
still on track to begin at the system's launch later this year. Specifics on 
the beta test program, including the number of testers and the means of 
signing up, will be revealed in the future, following discussions with 
Microsoft. The beta test will take place on an exclusive Xbox 360 server and 
is designed primarily to test the interaction between Xbox Live and Square 
Enix's own Online service, Play Online, as well as put the Xbox-specific 
features to the test (we're not sure what those are just yet). The final 
version will run on the same servers as the Windows and PS2 versions.

In terms of game content, it looks as though Xbox 360 players will be able 
to look forward to everything the PS2 and Windows players currently have. 
While Tanaka won't specify exactly what will be included with the 360 
version, he states that he hopes to get in everything up to the latest 
expansion pack, Chains of Promathia. Tanaka hopes to have updates available 
simultaneously for all versions in the future.

The two developers also share a bit about the next generation massively 
multiplayer Online RPG demo that Square Enix showed at Microsoft's pre-E3 
press conference. Tanaka states that the trailer was just a test in order to 
see what types of imagery could be displayed in an MMORPG designed for a 
next generation system or the next generation of Windows. It's not the case 
that the trailer that was shown will be transformed into a game, but using 
the technology featured in the trailer, Square Enix will develop a next 
generation MMORPG.

Yamamoto chimes in with some technical details about the demo. The trailer 
shows normal mapping, reflection mapping and other effects. These are things 
that the team will be using in its next generation MMORPG engine. Including 
stuff that you don't see, the demo scene consists of 18 million polygons. 
Characters use a similar polygon count as what we see in FFXI, but they look 
much smoother using a number of visual effects. Development originally began 
with a target for the next generation Windows platform, but all work was 
ported over to the Xbox 360 in time for E3. Yamamoto states that the port 
went smoothly.

Microsoft will hold a press conference in Japan later this month, announcing 
more details on Xbox 360 and its games. We hope to see more from Square Enix 
at that time.