Square Enix Sells Lightning Returns’ Aerith Costume By Mistake, Breaks Exclusivity Deal, Apologizes
Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII has a costume reproducing the dress of Aerith from Final Fantasy VII, but to get it in Japan you need to purchase the V Jump Strategy Game for the game.
Or at least that was supposed to be the case, as Square Enix suddenly put the costume for sale as DLC a few days ago by mistake, breaking the exclusivity deal and then withdrawing the offer as soon as the mistake was noticed. Together with Aerith’s costume, the distribution of Cloud’s outfit and Yuna’s Kimono from Final Fantasy X was halted as well.
Today they posted two tweets to apologize for the mishap and explain what happened.
A notification and apology for Aerith’s costume from Final Fantasy VII. We’re reporting the circumstances about the the interruption of the sale of this DLC on Friday, December 20th. This DLC was available as an exclusive bonus to be released with a publication by Shueisha, but has been sold due to our mistake.
About this matter we apologize for the inconvenience to everyone and more than anything to our customers and to Shueisha. We will resume today the distribution of Cloud’s costume from Final Fantasy VII and Yuna’s from Final Fantasy X. We apologize to everyone that was waiting for the DLC.
Considering how keen publishers are, lately, on releasing this kind of exclusive DLC, it’s likely that quite a few angry calls have happened between Square Enix and Shueisha at the outset of this hoopla. On the bright side, a few customers managed to get their hands on Aerith’s costume without having to buy the strategy guide.
We still don’t know how Aerith’s costume will be distributed in the west, but hopefully we don’t have to buy a strategy guide ourselves to get our hands on it.
