No FFXIII In North America Until 2010?

An article discovered on Reuters seems to have an interview with Square-Enix big-wig Yoichi Wada. In this interview he states that Final Fantasy XIII will likely see a 2009 release in Japan, but won't be released until after April 2010 in North America (for both the PS3 and 360 versions).

In this day in age, is it really still as difficult to do localization work as it was nearly 10 years ago? Why do we still have release dates that are far apart depending on where you live? This is so 1999. Simultaneous releases should be an industry standard instead of a rarity. Its hard to conceal my frustration even though I know the longer it takes, the better the game is likely to become. Still, with so many delays and very little information, its hard to be optimistic that even those vague dates given above won't be pushed back. We will likely not even see a demo for the game outside Japan this year.

If the insane delay on the North American FFXIII is because of releasing it on two platforms instead of just Sony's PS3, I will be very disappointed in Squeenix.