What Square Enix did last gen in their FF release schedule is repeating itself.

Please take a look at the table below which shows the main series FF games released last gen and what teams made them and what year their Japanese release date was. The team making FFXV and the year of its release is a prediction by me based off the situation last gen. I reached my conclusion based on the Japanese release years of each of the main series FF games last gen and how they compared to this gens main series FF games. I also paid attention to the yearly order in which the main series FF games came out and compared that to this gen.

Please take a look at the table and post your thoughts on my theory.

Update: I've made a new table that includes FF Versus XIII

hmm...but what about Versus XIII...i think Versus XIII will maybe be the last FF this gen and FF XV will be PS4 game...

tagged for later!

-mod edit-

This post has been moderated

Good observations, but what team are making type-0?

Crisis Core team.No idea what they have done before this and the mobile version.Actually I'm not even sure if they have done the mobile one.:P

As I said in the OP, Versus XIII is not a main series FF game and even both Kitase and Nomura say so. It's also being made by the Kingdom Hearts team and Advent Children team. Both have never made a main series FF last gen.

It's being made by  a group within Product Development Division 1.

I'll break it down:

Product Development Division 1 (Manager: Yoshinori Kitase)

I know we've spoken about this before, and i agree something must be in the works from the absense of important members of PDD4 who have not been active for the last few years.

whether the FF Tactics team will be on board or not is still unknown. however Sqaure have recently spoken about how the next FF will be on consoles - and they also mentioned something else indicating that its already in development.

its possible it will be announced this TGS or next E3. but its ridiculous because they cant release a game at the end of this console gen. it just wont sell well. i think they need to aim for either a 2012 or 2013 release at the very limit. because by 2014 i think we will have new consoles from each manufacturer and are current consoles will be phased out.

i just love the idea that a non-main FF will be the best FF in the last 10 years ^^

I think they will bring XV out at the end of this gen like they did with XII last gen.

Versus XIII is coming out late 2012 in Japan and then XIV on PS3 still needs to come out and have time to get subscribers. The PS3 version of FFXIV won't get loads of subscribers if people know another main series FF is coming out straight after it. The earliest they can bring out XV is 2014 as that will give XIV on PS3 a few years to be latest FF on that console so people are more willing to play it.

It borderline obvious that Product Development Division 4 are making XV. Some notable points:

1) The absence of Hiroyuki Ito (Director of VI, IX, XII)  since 2007. He was recently credited as "Special Thanks" for Dissidia 012: Final Fantasy which means he's still at the company. What has he been doing for the past 4 years? He obviously must be working on a huge unannounced project.

2) A lot of FFXII staff helped make The Last Remnant and they have all disappeared since the game came out in November 2008. Square Enix already confirmed that they won't be making a sequel to The Last Remnant due to it not selling well, so what are all these FFXII staff members now working on?

3) In March 2009, four months after the release of The Last Remnant, Hiroshi Minagawa showed a video of Rabanastre from FFXII running on Unreal Engine 3 and with the crowd simulation and AI of Assassin's Creed. But wait, didn't the The Last Remnant also use Unreal Engine 3 and have a lot of FFXII staff that made it?

4) If you look at the credits of Tactics Ogre on PSP, most of the staff in the credits also worked on FFXII.

5) Hiroshi Minagawa refused to answer if FFXV would be his next game after Tactics Ogre on PSP. He instead laughed off the question and said, "I'm not saying anything."

6) At the PAX East 2011 event, when Alexander O. Smith and Joseph Reeder were asked if they would be willing to work on any other Square Enix games, they both replied, "Yeah, sure. We would be happy to work with Hiroshi Minagawa again."

With all the above points taken in, there's enough evidence to assume that Product Development Division 4 are currently making FFXV.

Yes i agree. i also think that Wada is fully aware of the mixed reception of FF13 both in Japan and overseas, and he will now hedge his bets on PDD4 to revive the series. which is why i think it would have to be coming sooner rather than later.

imo FF13-2 looks to be a step in the right direction with more gameplay options. FF13-2 has more RPG elements returning. but i dont think its the step in the right direction in terms of tone. i think what we need now is more of the realisim and belivability we had with FF12.

not to mention that while FF12 also recieved a mixed reception, however the critical reception of the game was extremely high.

theres no telling what feats PDD4 could acheive with the FF Tactics team leading them while at the same time responding to the criticisims of FF12. which i thought was a good game, but was not perfect.

anyway we will see - its possible that Sqaure want to wait until FF13-2 is released before annoucing it.