Tanaka Leaves Square Enix.

[Jynx]

Last night, at the end of VanaFest 2012, Hiromichi Tanaka, Final Fantasy XI's producer since the game's launch, announced that he will be retiring from Square Enix due to unspecified health reasons.

Tanaka's history with Square Enix brought about some of the most memorable titles ever released by the company, such as Xenogears and Chrono Cross, but also saw more troubling times recently with the rough launch of Final Fantasy XIV in 2010.

Tanaka's position with Final Fantasy XI will be replaced by Akihiko Matsui, who served as the game's director in 2010 before being brought on board Final Fantasy XIV as lead battle designer.

While many of may be aware of this news allready the original thread was shut down due to linking to another forum.

Let's all be respectfull to the man who brought us XI and even if poorly received XIV wouldn't exist today without him. I wish him well in all of his future endeavors and a speedy recovery.

Stay classy Tanaka.