The reason for this late release is pretty obvious to me... just few weeks ago, the game gone through a MASSIVE patch update... not just talking about adding auto-run in the previous patch, the latest patch named "1st wave. Version 1.10" added among the list of:
1. New Game + which addes equipments up to GR8 into the main game (people were crying about drop rates), and extra stuff from shops when you beat New Game +
2. Game balance issues
3. New menu structure, which made skills a lot easier to acess.
4. room matching/restriction when creating rooms (lv, gr restriction)
5. synthesis shop to online rooms (big)
6. PAUSE button for offline mode (lol... peopel were complaining believe it or not)
7. retry function for offline (people were complaining particularly about one boss fight lol...)
Among MANY MANY other enhancement since the early Japanese release... I fully expect all these patch and extra DLC quests (which has been all free of charge) to be in the day-one NA release.
The game is pretty much SONY's answer to the lost of Monster Hunter 3 in my opinion...
The game is likely to reach greatest hit status with 340K already in Japan, and 200K from NA and EU is very reasonable.
