[Haak]

Originally Posted by Endless Twilight

Uh, I'm fairly sure the official story is that the initial plan was for the protagonist of F/SN to be a girl and Saber an actual male Arthur, but since they were trying to sell, you know, a porn game, they switched their roles around and had to come up with Arturia was a result.

- How did you come to make the decision of creating Fate?

Nasu: Fate was originally a story I wrote when I was in college. In it the gender of Saber and Shirou were opposite to now, but the essential theme had not been changed, it's the story about legendary heroes and "a boy meets a girl."

Takeuchi: I created it because I just liked it, and I wanted to make something like Tsukihime, but more sophisticated. I changed the character's gender, in order to have them fit in with the gamers today.

Nasu: Well, I remember one of the reason it was changed was because he made the request to let him draw a girl with armor. Finally it came true. XD

http://comipress.com/article/2006/06/30/386

We're both right then.