Almost a full month before release, the English language version of Final Fantasy XII has been leaked to the internet.
Developer Square has responded harshly to the leak, reportedly taking legal action against many torrent hosting sites, forcing these sites to remove the torrent from their database. Those who had previously found the torrent, however, will still be able to continue downloading until finished. Additionally, as of press time, several top torrent sites still had the game available. With over thirty thousand active downloaders between these sites, Square still has quite a bit of work ahead of them. These numbers do not account for those who had already finished acquiring the game.
In order to play the game, downloaders must burn the file to a DVD, and play it using a Playstation 2 that’s been modified to allow the play of pirated games. Interestingly, recent legal proceedings have revealed that even the biggest sellers of mod-chips sell only a few thousand, each. Given the number of people downloading the game, this would imply a good chance that many will not be able to make any use the pirated material, anyway.
Final Fantasy XII, which has been out in Japan for some time, is scheduled for North American release on October 31st.
