Mizuguchi confirms Ninety-Nine Nights delay

A week after Japanese retailers reported that Ninety-Nine Nights will be delayed from January to spring 2006, the rumor has been confirmed by the game's producer, Tetsuya Mizuguchi. No North American release date has been announced for the game.

In an interview with Famitsu Xbox 360, Mizuguchi commented that he is pushing back Ninety-Nine Nights' release date to ensure its quality. While he admits that the delay will cause consternation for gamers and retailers, he decided that releasing a game of inferior quality would disappoint even more people.

Famitsu Xbox 360's article features a co-interview with Mizuguchi, founder of Q Entertainment. and Sang Youn Lee of developer Phantagram. The two studios are working together on Ninety-Nine Nights, which was about 80 percent complete as of the time of the interview. Currently, the developers are working on giving more realistic movement to the armies in the game. By tuning the game's artificial intelligence, Lee hopes to make individual characters more responsive to situations so that they move more naturally as a group.

Looking back at his project, Mizuguchi revealed that he originally had two game ideas for the Xbox 360. He decided to go with Ninety-Nine Nights, which was originally called Fantasy Core. Lee revealed that his studio was originally planning to make its own game called Strident, but he decided to work with Mizuguchi after they met. Lee commented that it took just about a week before he settled on Ninety-Nine Nights, turning down offers from other companies.