In an interview posted on the official Japanese Soul Calibur III website, Hiroaki Yotoriyama, the game's producer, has revealed the title will see the light of day in Europe and the US before reaching Japanese stores.
Soul Calibur III is currently due for release in Japan sometime this autumn, although European and US dates have yet to be confirmed.
Yotoriyama also reaffirmed the title's PS2 exclusivity, while revealing that no special guest characters will be included this time round because it's his policy "not to do the same thing twice", apparently.
Previously, each of the three platform versions of the game featured a unique guest character: Spawn for Xbox, Heihachi from Tekken for PS2 and Link for Gamecube.
Yotoriyama also confirmed Soul Calibur III will not feature any sort of online mode, citing each country's differing internet capabilities, and a preference to concentrate efforts on the offline game, as a reason.
"Currently, the online infrastructure is extremely different between countries and there are people that can't enjoy network gaming," Yotoriyama points out. "We've decided to concentrate on improving the offline game and its characters so that people all over the world will be able to have fun."
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