Dissidia was released in Japan on the 18th of December, and sold 350,000 copies the first day of sale. Up until Jumpfesta 08' there was no western release date, but a North American release was foretold to be on the way halfway through 2009.
The playable character list was slowly leaked, painstakingly one or two characters at a time. The bulk of the Characters were released earlier in the show, and unlockable characters were but a hope for us all, rumors of characters from XIII even arose but were denied in an interview a couple of weeks before the release because it would "lock" the characters fighting style in before final decisions had been made. In the same interview a new character was released, Shantotto from XI which threw most of balance with that character coming out of nowhere.
Under a week before the release Gabranth from XII was released as another Villain which equaled out the numbers of heros and villains to a square eleven aside.
After the release on the 18th the Final Fantasy fanatics hit the web in search of a ripped copy to play on their homebrewed PSP's which lead to a massive search for an online translation. After only couple of days of being released an unofficial english patch for the menu system was developed.
