Time, Budget, Manpower, and Scope

[Turtledeluxe]

Have they tried looking beyond Japanese people who only speak Japanese...?

No. And I am not being facetious. The answer is no.

You can speak more than Japanese of course as localizers do, but Japanese is apparently a base requirement to work directly on XIV. That said, I am basing this on a quote from Yoshi P. It would be kind of mind boggling if they have not contracted out some work on certain things pertaining to things like asset design. But there are other things I would think could work with translated communications like say, a quest writer, or someone who works on the audio, etc. His statement was broad like "People all over the world want to help develop XIV but knowing Japanese is a hindrance for most people.."