Kingdom Hearts III
"Kingdom Hearts III" was released for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on January 25, 2019 in Japan and other Asian countries, and is scheduled to be released on January 29, 2019 elsewhere. In July 2017, at D23, it was announced that the game would release in 2018. Almost a year later, at an additional performance of the "Kingdom Hearts" Orchestra World Tour in Los Angeles, the game's North American release date was revealed to be January 29, 2019. Nomura spoke to moving the game's release date outside of 2018, stating the development team had been told the original release date they had considered was not "good timing in the year" to release the game, especially considering "differences in holiday lengths and how stores behave in different regions". In addition, Square Enix requested the game be released as simultaneously as possibly between Japan and the rest of the world, and not wanting to move up the release at the expense of development, resulted in the January 2019 date being chosen. The game's epilogue is planned to be added to the game on January 26 for Japan and January 30 elsewhere, while the secret film content is planned to be added worldwide on January 31, 2019. This was done in order to help prevent them from leaking beforehand, since Nomura called them "the biggest spoilers" in the game.
Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep
"Birth by Sleep" was directed by Nomura and co-directed by Tai Yasue. It was announced alongside "Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days" and "Kingdom Hearts coded" at the Tokyo Game Show on September 20, 2007, where a trailer was shown in a photo-prohibited theater. New trailers were shown at the 2008 Jump Festa in December 2007 and the DKΣ3713 Private Party, an invite-only event by Square Enix for fans, in August 2008; a playable demo was also available at DKΣ3713. The June 5, 2009 issue of "Famitsu" covered an interview with Tetsuya Nomura, where he said that the game was, at the time, at the voice recording stage. Nomura also confirmed in an interview that "Birth by Sleep" would contain a secret ending like in "Kingdom Hearts" and "Kingdom Hearts II" for the next game in the "Kingdom Hearts" series, which he confirmed to be a main game and the one which Nomura stated would link up "Birth by Sleep", "358/2 Days" and "coded". He also confirmed that a "Birth by Sleep" demo would indeed be playable at the 2009 Tokyo Games Show together with a new trailer. In early October 2009, Nomura revealed that the concept of the Command Board originated from when he was in elementary school as at that time he was very fascinated with board games and even made his own; hence he wanted to incorporate a fun board game into the game.