The next issue of EGM is said to have an interview with Hironobu Sakaguchi while he was in Japan. From what has been written by the EGM staff this is a pretty substancial interview but mainly focuses on the origins of Final Fantasy. Later in the article, Nobuo Uematsu and Yoshitaka Amano are also mentioned.
Ever since Sakaguchi broke away from Square Enix and formed Mistwalker, Nobuo Uematsu, who also left Square Enix and his is own 'Smile Please' studio, has worked with in for 2 of this biggest JRPG releases for the XBOX 360. Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey. Sakaguchi has worked with two extremely popular Japanese artists Akira Toriyama (Dragonball Z --- perhaps the most famous manga artist in the world today) for Blue Dragon and Takehiko Inoue (Slam Dunk and Vagabond) for Lost Odyssey.
The transition from paper to actual game concept for both artists went surprsingly well...with a notable mention on my end for Blue Dragon which I believe is the best looking JRPG to date. With all this it doesn't come as a surprise that Yoshitaka Amano has also expressed interest in working with Sakaguchi once again...thereby reuniting the 3 big names of the original Final Fantasy franchise.
For fans of Mistwalker, we are all hoping that this reunion will mark a new JRPG from Mistwalker. The Tokyo Game Show is fast approaching and Sakaguchi is now back in Japan and met up his former partners in crime. Microsoft had an early JRPG press conference with the announcement of what is coming in Japan but for the last 3 years Microsoft KK (MS Japan) always has at least one new exclsuive game announcement coming from a Japanese game studio
Could this be the collaboration of Sakaguchi, Uematsu and Amano?
Personally, I'll be so thrilled if it really is. And so would a lot of people.
I am very happy for the support that Square Enix is giving to the 360. And I'll be sure to get their releases on the XBOX 360 but I'm also excited for Mistwalkers offerings! As a JRPG fan, the more the merrier!
On TGS 2008, I also hope that Cry On will have more info. This will be the next big game from Mistwalker. And the art designer is the popular designer of the Panzer Dragoon series Manabu Kusunoki.
Looking at all this, the XBOX platform has really come a long way since the days of the XBOX 1 where there were no JRPGs...and yes Sudeki doesn't count.