[Cactuar]

At the end of VanaFest 2012, Hiromichi Tanaka announced that he would be leaving Square Enix due to unspecified health reasons. Former Final Fantasy XI Director Akihiko Matsui will step in as the new Producer of Final Fantasy XI.

[Derock]

lol

[Gropitou]

Ahhh nothing says loving like a weiner on a stick.

[BakuraSama]

hes either being force to quit because of square enix or he refuses to see anymore damage done to his baby (ffxi) and decided to leave before it got worse Lol

[Cactuar]

Hiromichi_Tanaka @ forum.square-enix.com said:

Thank you all so much for the warm words. It was due to all of you that we were able to successfully put on VanaFest 2012 and I deeply appreciate all of you adventurers who have been supportive.

Despite my resignation announcement, the following day was the regular run of the mill busy day filled with preparations for the next version update and organizing data for succession and it all hasn’t really sunk in yet. I am sure that up until the last day of next month I will be working just as usual.

As for my illness which everyone has been so kindly concerned about, it is not something that is curable with modern medicine, but neither is it something that will worsen, so it’s an illness that I will have no choice but to deal with.

Finally, I would like to once again introduce my successor Akihiko Matsui and the rest of the development and operations staff who will be working hard together to develop the new expansion as well as the next version update.

Thank you all very much!

[via forum.square-enix.com]