--How did the collaboration with Disney for Kingdom Hearts come about? There's a rumour(※) that it was decided in an elevator.
*It seems as though the details of this story have not spread much in the west, so it was confirmed again at this event.
Nomura: At that time, Square (now Square Enix) and Walt Disney Japan had offices in the same building. One day Hashimoto, who said hello just before, happened to be in the same elevator as someone from Disney and apparently they had a conversation about how it'd be nice to be able to work on something together sometime. That led to Hashimoto and Mr Sakaguchi (Hironobu Sakaguchi, currently at Mistwalker) talking with Disney about doing something together. I happened to be there at the time, and put my hand up. That's how it started.
--How did you come up with the idea of travelling to many Disney worlds?
Nomura: When the time came to collaborate with Disney for real, I had to come here (i.e. Los Angeles) many times for meetings about what kind of game we would make. They made all sorts of proposals, but I am greedy, and I didn't want to be limited to one world setting - I wanted to be able to make something that shared many world settings. So, I suggested the idea of travelling to many worlds.