Square Enix CEO pledges to have FFXIV fixed

The decidedly tepid reaction to Final Fantasy XIV has certainly not escaped Square Enix, who previously implored reviewers to give the troubled MMO a little more time to mature (through patching, of course) before giving their final verdict.  Fortunately, Square Enix is proving sensitive to critical feedback and is putting itself on a fast track to make FFXIV fun for a change.

Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada conceded during his investor briefing that FFXIV is having a bad run since the day it was released, because his company simply couldn't reach the lofty goals it set for the game.  Wada feels the publisher faces an upward battle to restore faith in players, but at least they're working to win back what they can:  "We're quickly working on reforms.  W'd like to put our full power into regaining trust... If we satisfy our users, they will return. On the other hand, once the users say, 'forget this,' there's no turning back. We can only recover our trust so far."

In more encouraging news, Wada did confirm that the publisher managed to ship 630,000 copies of FFXIV worldwide thus far.  The global teardown saw 210,000 units going to North America, another 190,000 moving in Japan, while the remaining 230,000 for Europe.  Interesting to see that FFXIV is shipping a smidge better in PAL markets.

Meanwhile, the PS3 version of FFXIV remains on track for a March 2011 release.  Recall that the PS3 release was pushed back that far because of the amount of work that will be required to port and optimize the PC game onto console.