The only consistent thing with the FF franchise is the inconsistency of the fans' opinions.  The series will continue until it doesn't sell anymore.  Whether we get anymore 'masterpieces' before then is probably up to fate. Everyone and their mother will give you a different story on which of the old FFs is absolute trash or is absolute gold. 

I also think that Sakaguchi has lost interest in the series, because he never talks about it really, and now its looks like the Last Story will be a success, then he will have more important things to do.

as for Matunso's return, i think Tactics Ogre will get wrapped up this year, when its released in Japan, then hopefully he will announce a new project. i was hoping that he would return to direct FF15, because i believe he could reignite the lustre of the series, that has sadly been lost imo. but we will see...

For me Final Fantasy started going downhill when they released X-2. Or maybe even FFX, which wasn't a bad games, but it wasn't that great either. With that said, I doubt the franchised will be killed any time soon, but if Versus XIII isn't great SE should take a break from making the series.

i think the answer to both of the_bloodwalkers questions is (and in response to your post scottie: that SE is trying to reach the sales success of FF7, with about 10mil units shipped/sold.

and since Sakaguchi has left, Kitase is the head of production team 1, and for some reason he and production team 1 seem to think the way to reach that success is to draw from influences like FPS and creating something that isnt an RPG:

Oh and heres an interview with Kitase: http://www.gamegrep.com/previews/30446-final_fantasy_xiii_not_an_rpg_says_producer_new_1up_exclusive_screens/

he talks about why FF13 is NOT an RPG, and about how series is becoming more like an interactive movie. Toriyama discusses how FF13 is more like an FPS than an RPG and some of the methods he used to make it like that. but of course this isnt really what western gamers want, not to mention the admission made by SE that the 5 years spent with Crystal Tools 'may' have been a mistake!

Wada allowed this because hes not a game designer, hes a buisness man; but this is why i dont agree with the direction the series has gone in and their methodology and design philiosophy for making FF13 that way.

I think things were different when they started work on the White Engine; I'm guessing Square was planning to make a lot of ps3 games.  Then someone decided to make a  360 port of FInal Fantasy XIII and that's when things went bad; they spent too much time porting the engine to the 360 and PC that Final Fantasy 13's development couldn't really take off until much later.  And while FInal Fantasy 13 looks great, it's pretty much outdated and can't do much other than cutscenes.  So now all that time put into the white engine is going down the drain, cause probably Final Fantasy VS 13 is going to be the last game to use the engine.  I think it was just a miscalculation on their tech department and too many decisions being changed; made developers spend a good year or so on the engine before they could start using it.  Now with hardware refresh on the horizon (New consoles are going to be announced pretty soon.)  Square isn't going to be able to pump out too many more games.  Just bad management decisions if you ask me. (Not refering to the 360 port of Final Fantasy, but rather how they went about the port).  Oh and they raided most of the development team of FInal Fantasy Vs 13 to finish FInal Fantasy 13 (Which is why Nomura is practically nowhere with his game).  So they spent 4 years and 2 development teams on an engine that so far only 1 game has used and they only have 1 other game in development using it.

Well i didnt know that Crystal Tools was this much of a failure. as for new consoles, i doubt that we'll get them for a little bit yet, so i think SE still has one last chance with FF15 this gen, this does also call into question Wada's management style. i didnt think Wada was accountable before... but it seems that he may well be. if indeed they dont use Crystal Tools again, then its completely unacceptable, its been a waste of 5 years, for 1 game, that had such a mixed reception.

and Crystal Tools may have been miscalculations from the tech department, but i think it is Kitase who is responsible for scrapping 1 year of dev time on the PS2 and creating a new HD engine, however i didnt know that it was only good for cutscenes. is it not designed for other things??

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/30639/Game_Developer_October_Issue_Showcases_Final_Fantasy_XIII_Companies_To_Watch.php

found this link and part of the development team discuss how FF13s development was disjointed and well poorly managed it would seem. until the demo came out and rectified some of the problems, but i mean there is clearly things that are wrong with the way the team were managed.

Edit: its seems that are deep rooted problems at the managment level that is rotting the series from the inside imo.

The series is on life support. While XIII was an improvement over XII, I still think it was a below average Final Fantasy Title. The story was okay, but it suffered from not having a main focal enemy/Rival to the main character. Look at FFVII It was Cloud vs Sephiroth and Jenova, FF8 was Squall vs Ultimeica/Seifer, FF9, Zidane vs Kuja/Garland, FF10 Tidus vs Jecht/Sin and I haven't beaten FF6 yet but from where I am its looking to be Terra vs Kefka/Empire.

See FFXIII lacked that enemy factor. In the beginning you think its gonna be Lightning vs Jhil/L'Cie, but Jhil and Yaag ended up being nothing but minor characters.

Also they really shouldn't have put a cap on leveling. That was a mistake, and the battles were way to hard, long and annoying. It made grinding a hassle.

Yeah the game's development must have been a nightmare.  I'm pretty sure they stopped development of the game to port it over to the PC and 360 cause the game was finished on PC and then ported back to the PS3/360 (This was said at the 360 version announcement at E308).  So they spent maybe 6 months on porting the engine, a year probably on finishing the game on PC and another year porting it back to PS3 and a few months (3 probably) porting it to 360.  I would say 2 years of development time was wasted and if that article is true then they literally finished the game in a few months and ported it to the PS3 cause that demo was finished less than a year before release.  That doesn't even take into consideration the year or 2 working on the PS2 version of the game.  Hell development started before FInal Fantasy 12 was released.  This game had a 6 year dev cycle and the final product doesn't show it.  Like this game has been riddled with bad business decisions, from the tech director, all the way to Wada.  Like the fact that the game could have been released 2 years earlier and the fact that they raided the dev team for FInal Fantasy Vs 13... I could have been playing FInal Fantasy vs. 13 right now.  And 5 years into this gen the only "HD" game that Square has made in house has been Final Fantasy 13 and The Last Remnant (Another game with a bunch of bad business decisions).  I really question what's going on at Square, and now Wada wants Final Fantasy games every 2 years, he's an idiot.  You need about 3 years to make a proper Final Fantasy game (all of them have had 3 year dev cycles as far as I know), and wanting them pushed out every 2, we're going to start getting 6 hours Final Fantasy games.  Like Final Fantasy 13 has some ups and downs, but the games arn't going to get better with current management, they're only gonna get worse.

Edit:  Thinking about it how the hell did they make this game?  They seriously made a bunch of art assets and then glue them together? WTF?

Yeah well i think after seeing how deep rooted these problems are then we're all disappointed with the decisions that have been made, but tbh, i think Wada is right to put pressure on the team now. they've taken far too many liberties, making FF less like and RPG and infusing it with FPS elements, and all the resources and time they consumed to do that.

i dont think that Wada wants a main FF installment every 2 years, i think he want a new game from that team every 2 years, whether its a spin off or whatever. either way i was hoping that FF15 would've been developed by the other production team, who've havent been heard from since FF12 was released. and i can see your point that these games will continue to get worst because i dont have faith in the FF13 team.

That's really bad (the link you posted). After playing and completing the game I thought it may have been a case of development hell as you could see a lot of art assets were made and time taken to create the world, yet it lacked so many features normally found in a full Final Fantasy or even an average JRPG. This just proves my thoughts were correct.

As for Crystal tools I don't think they'll be using it again, at least not in its current form. Since the merger with Eidos they've shared a lot of the tech to create a new engine. It wasn't a bad engine per se but it wasn't particularly advanced either, especially at release.