no not at all 13 was awesome  man ff fans are hard to please

FFXIII may have been an incredible game, but it is targeted at too wide an audience, and it left many hardcore RPG fans feeling left out.

I think that it is way too early to call one of the biggest franchises in existence dead. FFXIII expanded the franchise, albeit at the cost of some existing fans. FFXIV sounds shit from reviews, but no-one ever likes the MMO FFs. FFXV will have a tough task to keep the new fans and apologise to those who didn't like XIII, but far from an impossible task

FFXIII didn't really expanded the franchise. It was released on two consoles. Multiplatform release is not considered expanding, but having a larger market increasing the chances of success of the game.

Expansion would mean that SquareEnix did the homework to answer two questions:

- Why there are gamers that have never played a FF game before

- Why are there fans feeling left out?

I don't think FF XIII and XIV have an answer of these questions, and I'm afraid XV will not either.

I honestly think Wada will drive SE into the ground. Let's look at the evidence:

1) FFXIII is mediocre

2) FFXIV is even more mediocre

3) Lots of FF out on every console and handheld available, diminishing brand value

4) DQ seems to be on its way to following point 3, but Hori still has some pull to not let it get that ridiculous

5) DQX and FFvXIII should be moved from Wii/PS3 to 3DS for maximum sales potential, but won't because Wada is too dumb.

6) SO4 is beyond mediocre, brand value has been significantly damaged

7) Not enough good new series/franchises, The Last Remnant was horrible and they're coming out with Loco Gun for XBL, but no one cares about that. 

There is still hope for them, Ogre and PE series seem to be getting good buzz and will possibly be good. TWEENY was supposedly good, they can always come back and with a new Chrono, Xenogears or Vagrant Story would go a long way. They could put those up on PSN to get the buzz going, but again, Wada is too big of an imbecile to do anything worth a damn.

PS2 has outsold the PS360 combined, this is not a userbase issue - FFXIII expanded the franchise.

FFXIII is aimed (more so that earlier FFs) at those who feel that RPGs are generally too slow paced, and require the use of complicated guides in order to produce the best party, and that is why more people are willing to play FF

I can't speak for everyone, but the main criticisms levelled at FFXIII from fans of either FF or RPGs in general are that  the game is too linear, and the combat system leaves you without enough control.

As I already said, this doesn't make it a bad game. It's just not aimed at me as much as I would like

FFXIII is not a bad game, agreed. It's just not Final Fantasy.

I didn't say anything about userbase. many PS3 owners were expecting the game and with the Xbox 360 release, there were more. A real expansion would mean that the sales of FF13 would completely overshadow FF12 and be an evergreen title, which of course, it didn't happen. A good example of expansion is Modern Warfare , it expanded the CoD Franchise by appealing to both current and new customers.

I bolded the paragraph to point out the double edge sword that statement is for SE. FFXIII, like FFX on PS2 has become many's first RPG of the series (don't know about XII). The fans' reaction towards XIII was one alarm the company needed to notice that something was wrong. X didn't have that kind of negative reaction but I know many RPG players like me feeling alienated because of that game