Christmas isn't a particularly religious holiday regardless. The holiday has become a secular event with peculiar traditions that rarely reflect any religion or denomination of a religion. The holiday is basically worship at the alter of consumerism. A excuse for consumers to buy goods for family and acquaintances that feels more like an obligation.

Looking at last years sales charts the holiday seems to have no meaningful effect upon game sales within Japan. So I wouldn't consider the timing to be poor. Were it in the West it would most assuredly be horrible timing. With the majority of retailers being closed for the holiday.

now heres the link of Famitsu
cheer up guys

http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/359/whitehb5.jpg

http://img372.imageshack.us/img372/325/white2pm3.jpg

Time to "Hen Shin" on Christmas

In Japan they are celebrating the new year, not christmas. So in reality Dec. 25 is a smart move as all of the late shopers will be arriving at the store the week this game comes out.

Japan does not celebrate Christmas

 Looks amazing.

 It be nice to come out a week before to accomadate the early shoppers too... and the people who are like "damn I don't want to go shopping in this crowd"

Fuck I was excited until I saw the Japan part.

NA release in March-ish likely?

Sweet, hopefully a Q1 or early Q2 American release.

 8-14 months. Be thankful if it releases before christmas. ('09)

Or if they are hauling ass and are working on a NA release already 4-6 months (dont see that happening though)

Well, I dug around old Level 5 games' release dates. First date is JPN, second date is NA:

Dark Cloud: 12/14/00 vs 5/28/01
Dark Cloud 2: 11/12/02 vs 2/17/03
DQ VIII: 11/27/04 vs 11/15/05

These are the console games, minus Rogue Galaxy, whose delay is a bit murky b/c of the Director's Cut business.

So it's kinda all over the place, 5, 3, and 12 months. I didn't bother to look at handheld data.

I hope WKS's localization is gonna be like Dark Cloud 2's. Fingers crossed!!