Final Fantasy creator's next project is a surfing iPhone game

Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi will abandon home consoles for his next project, an iPhone game centred on his hobby of surfing.

The legendary developer told Eurogamer at a BAFTA event in London last night he now had three iOS projects in the works, but remained tight-lipped on the details.

The trio of titles will be "small projects" and "platform" games, following his work on expansive Wii role-player The Last Story.

"The first one is a surfing game," Sakaguchi added.

"He's not joking," his translator confirmed.

Sakaguchi mentioned how he often dreamt up ideas for games "while taking a shower or waiting for a wave while surfing".

But why develop on iOS? Sakaguchi claimed it was because he was "an Apple fan" and remarked how the smartphone market was "increasing rapidly". Whether traditional console gaming would ever be overtaken by mobile devices "remains to be seen", however.

"Images outputted by PCs or consoles will always be of higher quality," Sakaguchi reasoned, "so they will never disappear off the face of the Earth."

The developer was speaking at an event to mark the UK launch of The Last Story, the latest game from his Mistwalker studio, which also created Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey.

Before that, Sakaguchi masterminded the Final Fantasy series from its creation until his departure from Square around the time of Final Fantasy X.

Sakaguchi admitted he has now grown tired of people asking him about the Final Fantasy series. "I had six interviews this morning and afternoon and there were so many questions about Final Fantasy," he said. "I am really tired of it!"