Pokemon X and Y's global release date has been seven years in the making, developer Game Freak has revealed.

Game director Junichi Masuda said "a lot of complaints" from European fans over the delay between regional releases sparked "structural changes" within Game Freak, starting with the DS generation of games.

"We knew we wanted to do this global, simultaneous release but we had to make some structural changes and we had to work with Nintendo and the Pokemon Company to really change how we localise the games," he told Digital Spy.

"Originally we would have Japanese versions then localise in English, and then from English, we would localise into French, Italian, German, Spanish, all these other languages.

"What we decided to do was create a localisation structure that we could localise directly from Japanese into all these different languages."

He continued: "We started this around the Diamond and Pearl games, and gradually over the years, we became more efficient at doing this localisation, and with each release, we were able to decrease the time lag between the Japanese release and the other languages.

"Finally, with Pokemon X and Y, we got to point where we were efficient enough – we had the tools in place, the teams in place – to be able to finally release them all at the same time."

Whether global releases would happen with future Pokemon releases would be down to how the fans respond.

"We put a lot of effort into the global, simultaneous release to make sure that pays off," Masuda said.

"Why we wanted to do this – to have the games out the same time around the world – is so everyone would be discovering Pokemon for the first time, trading and interacting with each other.

"[We] definitely want to see how that reaction amongst our fans is. If it's good, then yes, definitely, we want to try it again. But if people don't really seem to care about it, then maybe not!"

Masuda added: "It's definitely up to our fans and how they respond!"

Masuda recently revealed that Pokemon X and Y would not feature 3D in the overworld to offer better visuals.

Pokemon X and Pokemon Y launch worldwide on October 12 alongside the new Nintendo 2DS.

> Pokemon X & Y preview: New visuals, a new world, new ways to train

Pokemon X and Y - gallery:Gaming: Pokemon X and Y

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