Imo, FF13 is a new IP, the developers have done something completely raidical and imo its failed, without the name FF on the cover i very much doubt it wouldve sold 6 million copies.

http://www.finalfantasyunion.com/news/square-enix-final-fantasy-xiii-will-outsell-final-fantasy-vii--710.html

Since FF8,  Square have been chasing a dream, to replicate the commerical and critical success of FF7 and exceed it. the FNC, is designed to be bigger than the FF7 compilation, and imo FF13 was supposed to be the biggest FF, bigger than FF7.

the developers failed because they made something they say 'is NOT an RPG' but more like an FPS, like COD. they havent understood that games are meant to be played not watched, so that is why i think FF13 is a fail.

FF12's development problems arnt rumours, i felt while it was a good game, it was a mere shadow of what it couldve been had the director, Matsuno remained. and Sakaguchi thinks so too.

Edit: Hirkuchan, i'm not disputing why Matsuno left, all i'm saying is that there is a incoherent narrative, and development team have stated in their post morterm, that the game suffered from a lack of vision. not to mention Ito said he was pleased with the Famitsu score, but he felt there were disagreements with the story between the Playonline team and the FF Tactics team. and Sakaguchi refused to play it because of Matsuno's departure, this is why imo FF12 feels like a broken game.

Oh and i lost interest in MGS series, when Liquid Snake controlled Revolved Ocelot through his arm. MGS3 was actully very good though, MGS4 more just same stuff, GW, JW, AI, stuff i had no interest in. i dont really care for the series much anymore, but MGS1 was an excellent game.

It wasn't, they predicted 6 Million sold at the financial conference http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6230719.html , which is a better source than an interview with a online gaming site. Your post is full of "speculation" and most of it pretty bad. How FF13 is like an FPS I'll never understand, sounds to me like Kitase was desperately trying to hype FF13 in that interview by trying to link it to FPS', the most popular genre at the moment.

6 million is their sales expectation, they wanted 10 mil. Square didnt spend 5 years, thousands of hours, probabily millions, to develop a new game engine, money on marketing, money on Leonia Lewis, similtaneous release in US AND EU, and 3 months localising, multiplatform release. not to mention, they've lip synced the cutscenes to the English voice overs - developers dont do things like that unless that game is big, and FF13 was meant to be huge.

Square have been dreaming of FF7's success since FF8, whether you believe this or not, i believe that SE want to have the success they've had with FF7. why is that so difficult to belive??? you think Square are satisfied with each subsequent installment of FF to sell less than the previous one??  do you think the Fabula Nova Crystalsis compliation is meant to last 10 years, meant to bigger than FF7 compilation, but they want the flagship game of that series to be less successful??

the fundamental logic is that, a company might expect to sell less copies than they have in the past, but do you think they want to live in the shadow of their previous success?? a previous success, which is over 10 years old, no less.

At least by my definition FFXIII battle system is more real time than turn based. If game has proper turn based combat system I can go to toilet and come back and the battle is in the same state that I left it. In FFXIII I die if I left the battle for couple of minutes. Also I didn't say that I hate games with real time combat system. -.- I just prefer turn based combat system and as pretty much every home console JRPG nowadays has real time combat system it sucks for me. I like variety!

6 Million is a lot and enough to make a profit even with all that counted. And its not stopped selling, its likely it'll be at 7 Million by the end. You can't say what they want because you don't know what they want. Nothing else to it. FF13 was meant to be huge, I would say 6 Million is huge (enough for a sequel or other games based around it, FF12 that sold less had a game on DS based on its after events), its more than any other home console RPG this generation, but for that we'll have to define what huge means. We're going round in circles now and getting nowhere, I think so are you, so its more productive to stop this discussion.

I think its fair enough, i wont stop believing they want another FF7 type success. but it dosent matter, not everything has to be right or wrong, you have your beliefs and i have mine.

But FFIV,V,VI,VII,VIII,IX,X-2 and XII you coud not leve for 2 mins and still be alive the last FF you could do that with was FFX with the CTB battle system. 

Indeed you could, after running around for ages finding the correct missions and then doing another one to ride them after you've found them. 

Where's a Moogle run rental service when you need one?

Yes and yet that didn't make it a good game either.

I've voiced my hate for the FFX story but there is one thing it did better which is the battle system.  Either way FFX and FFXIII are at the bottom of the FF list.

Honestly the new trend in Final Fantasy has to do with the newer fans of JRPGs, they've been getting worse for 2 gens because they're trying to appeal to these fans, but in all honesty sales of most JRPGs are going down with it... its like the whole comic book era in the late 80s early 90s it appealed to a segment of comic book readers, alienated the rest, the segment seemed like it was the biggest, but it resulted in the crash of the entire industry, while that can't happen to video games it could run JRPGs into the ground.

I think FF10's story and gameplay were good. personally i really didnt like the voice acting or the dialogue, or the characters (Tidus and Yuna). but i can see why people really like the game, its got a great battle system, you can spend about 70 hours in the battle area and completing the sphere grid, then clearing it and completing it again. Spira was a well made world, even though there was no world map, it felt huge.

but after FF12's and Dragon Quest 8's voice acting and dialogue, i thought the tone and the writing for Square had vastly improved. but FF13's dialogue is noware near as good as those games. FF10 was acceptable because it was the first time SE did voice acting.

FF12 and Dragon Quest 8, those RPGs had dialogue and acting at the same level as Uncharted 2 imo, maybe even better. i dont know why FF13's is so bad by comparasion - oh wait i do, awful writing.

on your last point i think Xenoblade and The Last Story, if they come over here, will be very well recieved, i've heard great things about those games already.