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 III
Sony announced "Kingdom Hearts III" for the PlayStation 4 with a teaser trailer at its E3 2013 event in June 2013. Square Enix later confirmed the game's cross-platform release for the Xbox One as a port of the PlayStation 4 version. Though some development and concepts for the game began during the seventh generation of video game consoles, it was always intended that the game would release during the eighth generation. Unlike "Kingdom Hearts" and "Kingdom Hearts II", which were developed by Square Enix's Product Development Division 1 team, "Kingdom Hearts III" was developed by Square Enix's 1st Production Department, who developed "Birth by Sleep", "Dream Drop Distance", and worked on the "HD 1.5 Remix" collection and Square Enix's Business Division 3. Rie Nishi serves as the game's producer. The game began using the in-house Luminous Studio engine to develop the game after some initial development tests had been done using the Unreal Engine 3.