Whatever Happened To Final Fantasy Versus XIII?

Yes, I am doing another one of these posts in the same day.  That is how much this particular game's silence irks me.  Okay, then... begin rant:

Final Fantasy Versus XIII was announced as a PS3 exclusive five years ago at E3 2006, before the PS3 was even in stores.  It was revealed alongside Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy Agito XIII as the games in the Fabula Nova Crystallis universe.

Here is a little timeline of some things that have happened between that announcement, and today:

1. An American 360 version of Final Fantasy XIII was revealed, much to the chagrin of the PS3 community and the tears of joy of 360 owners.
2. Final Fantasy Agito XIII, originally a game for mobile phones, switched to development on the PSP instead.
3. Final Fantasy XIII was released.
4. A brief trailer of Versus XIII was shown at the 2010 Tokyo Game Show; that's right, brief trailer (OVER FOUR YEARS AFTER THE GAME'S ANNOUNCEMENT).  It was also announced that more information on the Fabula Nova Crystallis games would be revealed at a press conference on January 11, 2011; this date was later changed to January 18, 2011, because apparently, Square Enix can't do ANYTHING on time.
5. At the conference, a lengthy Versus XIII trailer was shown, containing actual gameplay!  Yay!
6. Also at the conference, Agito XIII had its title changed to Final Fantasy Type-0... whatever.
7. Finally, at the conference, Final Fantasy XIII-2 was announced for release in 2011.  Wait... WHAT???  WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!?!?!

That's right, the sequel to the game that was announced together with Versus XIII will ship before it.  Final Fantasy XIII-2 is releasing this December in Japan, and in the first quarter of 2012 in America/Europe.  This is the release date of Versus XIII: TBA.  WOW.  In summary, XIII and Versus XIII were announced together.  XIII was released well over a year ago, and now its sequel is going to hit stores, probably before we are even given any information at all on Versus XIII.

Tetsuya Nomura, the director of the game, stated that the earliest we would see Versus XIII would be at E3 2011; translated from Square Enix talk into realism, that means that there was no way in hell we were going to see the game at this year's E3, and we probably won't hear anything about it for some time to come.

-END RANT-

The only reason, of course, that I am criticizing this game's development is because I am eagerly anticipating its release.  Final Fantasy Versus XIII was the game that originally made me want a PS3; five years later, I have one, but no word on the game.  Versus XIII is vastly different from XIII due to its combat system, which is real-time instead of turn-based.  This immediately turned me on to the game, as I am a Kingdom Hearts fan,  and this sounded to me like a similar battle system.  Also, the world and story in Versus XIII look to be considerably darker than anything shown in XIII.  Overall, to me it looks much more intriguing.  The interesting thing about all of this is that I'm not even really a Final Fantasy fan; in fact, the only game of the series I've played from start to finish is Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (which, by the way, is hands-down the best PSP game ever made).  Also, I played through a fair chunk of Mystic Quest and thought that it was awesome (take that, haters).

Anyway, to end this post I shall leave you with some videos of Versus XIII, in attempt to get more people to know that the game exists.  The first video is simply the trailer shown at E3 2006; the second is an extended version of that; the third is yet another extended trailer, but with English subtitles; the fourth is the latest trailer that was shown at the press conference back in January, also with subtitles (also the only video with actual gameplay).  Enjoy: