Overview
- Michael Eisner told Game File reporter Stephen Totilo after a Delphi Interactive event on Wednesday that he did not remember approving the original Kingdom Hearts project or why he would have done so.
- Eisner only seemed to recall the game after Totilo described the pitch as “Final Fantasy plus Disney characters,” and he explicitly said he did not know why he said yes.
- Former Disney Interactive executive Shuji Utsumi has long described Kingdom Hearts as a Japan-originated, experimental project developed before formal approval and presented to Eisner and then-COO Bob Iger, with Eisner’s modest encouragement taken as clearance.
- The exchange arrives as Square Enix has recently shown new footage for Kingdom Hearts IV and confirmed a Nintendo Switch 2 version, keeping the franchise and questions about its origins in the spotlight.
- Fans and historians are likely to watch a planned D23 retrospective for more detail, though Eisner’s memory lapse does not contradict existing accounts that explain how the unconventional cross-company pitch moved forward decades ago.