This talk of FF7's budget fails to take into account several factors.
FF7 sold 10 mil copies, and the game is still selling. Its been the most popular PS1 game on the PSN, in 10 years time will FF13 still be popular? FF7 might have even sold 11 mil, maybe more. We don't know.
The money spent to develop FF7 yielded much better results. FF13 while it did sell 6 mil copies or however many, it sold as much on a larger platform install base, with an enormous marketing budget.
Will FF13 ever sell 10 mil copies like FF7? Will FF13 still be popular in 10 - 20 years time? Its not actually popular now. So what ever the budget for FF7, it was justified given the success of the title.
Is FF13's budget justified? Personally I think the reason sequels have been commissioned is because Square Enix had to recoup the losses they made with FF13's development cycle. This series of games has become unpopular and I feel that FF13 has had a negative effect on the series.
