Final Fantasy XIII is hitting Japanese shelves in mid-December, but when will North America see the newest iteration of the beloved series? This morning we got our answer thanks to a nifty video from Square Enix, as well as one other revelation. Besides setting March 9th, 2010 as the official release date, Square President John Yamamoto, announced that the NA version would not be getting the original main theme song, present in the Japanese game. Rather than getting Sayuri Sugawara's classical sounding "Kimi ga iru kara", we will be getting "My Hands" from Leona Lewis' upcoming album Echo.

To be honest with you, I had never heard of Leona Lewis until the announcement. After looking her up I found out she was a winner on the X Factor (UK version of American Idol) a few years back, and that didn't really get me that pumped up for her Final Fantasy debut. You can actually here the theme here if you'd like. But I think I'm going to hold judgement until I see it playing in the game - sometimes time and place can be everything to a song.

[SquareEnix via Wired]