Kitase: Final Fantasy development time "hopefully" shorter "next time"

FF XIII producer, Yoshinori Kitase, has said development time for Final Fantasy "next time around" will "hopefully" be shorter.

"Obviously we now have consoles with much better specifications. The graphical quality we should target at is a lot higher, so it takes a long time to achieve that quality," he told GamingUnion at gamescom last week.

"And Final Fantasy XIII, for example, was the first ever numbered Final Fantasy for Xbox 360 and PS3, so we really wanted to make it absolutely perfect, and it took a long time to make it perfect. But maybe next time around we need a much shorter time."

When asked if he meant the next numbered installment in the series that would take less time, Kitase replied: "Yes, yes, hopefully."

No-one's ever actually mentioned the name of the next game in the series.

FF XIII released back in March for PS3 and 360, while MMO XIV launches next month on PC. The PS3 version comes out in March 2011.