Do you have a source on that? I've never heard about it being anything but a ground-up PS3 engine.
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The White Engine reportedly uses 4 of the 6 synergistic processing elements (SPEs) that are available to games running on the Cell processor, to achieve near-pre-rendered CGI quality in realtime.
That's from Wikipedia, so make of it what you will. But the interview in the OP (the part about programming the specs specifically to the PS3) seems to confirm it.
Correction: it proves that they aren't planning on planning for a port at the moment. If they considered a port even a minor possibility, they would have gone with more universal specs to save them a lot of trouble later if they ever decided to port it. So rather than just not planning on a port right now, they're not even considering the possibility that they might want to at some point.
That's still not a 100%, eternal guarantee, of course. But I think this cements it further.
Edit:
Oh yeah, and I hope that quote about the airship map means what it sounds like. I'm a big fan of the PS2 FFs, but the point-and-click airship system those games used is pretty lame compared to the old way. Flying around the world in 60 realtime seconds in an airship the size of a city doesn't seem to fit into the "realistic" style they've been going for over the past couple games, though... I figured we'd have to wait for the next FF9-style "classic" FF to see the return of the world map. Here's hoping.