Guess FFXIV wont be important to me lol  Bring on FFXV !! lol

It will sell fewer units than XIII, but make significantly more money for SE in the long run.

Final Fantasy XIV will be very important to the gamign industry as it will be the first cross-platform MMO of the online generation. It may help PS3 slightly depending on how long it takes SE to finish talks with Microsoft, timed exclusivity with no set 360 release will help PS3 but it may well come out on PC, PS3 and 360 at the same time. It all depends on how negotiations with Microsoft go.

If it does well then it will shape the way for the future of cross-platform gaming the same way shadowrun and FFXI did, with FFXI making developers and platform holders realise it could be a success and Shadowrun scareing them off again, lol. Theres also DCUniverse Online, The Agent and ALL future SOE title due for release on the PS3 also, cross-platform gameplay is still giving them headaches though.

Once Sony and Microsoft have worked out how to treat MMO developers then MMOs might well be the next big genre to be flooding the console market, until then it's all trial and error with SE leading the way with their second cross-platform MMO.

FFXI was multiplatform and even on a current gen console (PS2, PC, 360).  I'm really not entirely sure what you mean by online generation...

It is an important game to the console MMO genre.

Indeed it was, but it was designed and released in 2002 way before the current generation of online consoles. On release the internet was relatively unused on consoles, broadband was rare and 360 release was more of an expansion of access than launch of a new title.

This generation of consoles has seen online play become common in most games. All consoles have built in internet compatibility, the majority of which are hooked up to the net and most have hard drives. FFXIV will be the first cross-platform MMO to be designed and released for this generation of hardware, the online generation, and will play a key role in shaping console and PC MMOs to come.