Apparently it was a joke in a Dev's Blog post. But they went ahead and made it. I'd still much rather have the NPC-relationship system instead of this, tbh...
Watch everyone rushing to this when it's released... and watch it die down extremely quickly. Reasons will be: having to get the minions we want to use again because they'll have to be special with stats and everything; not every minion will be usable; the whole thing will be an incredibly mind-numbing grindfest, just like TT and Chocobo racing - a frustrating mess instead of downtime fun.
Please look forward to it!