I think there's a chance the team would be big enough to make FFXV. They just need to add all the staff that worked on The Last Remnant to the staff that worked on Tactics Ogre for PSP. That would be enough staff. The Last Remnant is a HD game with epic scale towns and way, way more vast areas to explore than even FFXIII. Funny enough, a lot of the staff that made The Last Remnant also worked on FFXII. What has probably already happened is the staff that worked on The Last Remnant have moved on to FFXV since the game came out.

Also, what Kawazu said about FFXII was misinterpreted by FFXII haters. He meant that the PlayOnline members of the team were making the game as big as possible as they wanted to create a world on par with the scale of a MMORPG. However, the members of the FFT team were not used to creating a story for  a world that size. Have you played FFT? There is no huge world to explore in the game and so the story is neatly structured. The FFT team were not used to telling a story in the open and vast world that the PlayOnline team wanted to create. That's all Kawazu was saying. The FFXII haters just blew up his words by saying, "The FFXII story sucks as the FFT team and PlayOnline team were arguing." Go to the the source of the actual article and you'll see that's not what he actually meant at all.

Why does Matsuno have to come back or something for FF15 to exist?

Hiroyuki Ito is perfectly capable of directing a new FF on his own.

Whatever the situation, there were some serious incompatabilities with creative aspects of the game. the FF Tactics team originally planned for Basch to be the main character. and they were forced to make Vaan the main character. who wasnt that bad. for various reasons it seems Basch wouldve made a better lead character, instead of being marginalised.

i think Ito also mentioned that he was pleased by Famitsu's perfect score of F12, but he felt that creative differences between the 2 teams meant the story was not as good as it couldve been. i take it he was reffering to the Basch situation.

and most importantly, Sakaguchi didnt want to play FF12 past the opening movie, because he felt that the game was not what it shouldve been since Matsuno's departure. this means that perhaps he knew something we didnt.

but the biggest problem was probabily none of these things at all. FF12's development took place around the time Sakaguchi left Sqaure, when he left he took a lot of staff from the FF12 project with him, and its for this reason many speculate the game was a development nightmare, which took a lot longer than it shoudve done. however whatever these problems, nothing can compare to the waste of time Crystal Tools has been. so whatever problems were made were not learned when the FNC project went into production. however based on reports of FF13-2, it seems Sqaure has finally learned a lot from its past mistakes, the development of FF12 included.

oops repost..some glitch.

On the issue of development at Square:

Square has brick walls between its 3 divisions.

Any development lessons Division 1 has learnt (looking at XIII-2 so far it seems they have learnt a lot) from wasting 4 years on crystal tools n then rushing FFXIII out in 1.5 years won't be taken on board by Division 4. There is literally no communication channel between the separate Divisions of SE. Within the divisions the teams will have communication like Nomura's, Tabata's n toriyama's will discuss their problems.....but Division 2 n 4 won't know whats going on there.....there are invisible brick walls.

Divisions at SE run on a 1980's management and 1990's development process outline (well even squaresoft ran on 1970's management...its why they went bankrupt 2 times). Maybe this structure has been changed now but even If wouldn't expect to see its fruits till nex gen.

It seems clear to me Wada is under control of situation now, since hes instructed Kitase that he wants a new game from his team every 2 years. however its possible that FF15 is already in development and has already encountered these problems. which might explain why no information at all. i would agree with this point, the team of FF13 seem to have learned a lot from the development of FF13. and the sequel looks to be developing a lot faster; however i doubt Nomura knows what hes doing, Versus has been in production for what... 6 or 7 years, and still i think i've only seen 30 secs of gameplay, if even that.

Not only Wada is in control but Kitase/Toriyama have learnt a big lesson in how to develop a modern RPG. They thought vertical development slice was voodoo magic when they heard of it and how basically all WRPG's devs use that.

FF Versus XIII itself is a development disaster as once again Nomura's team is using Kitase/Toriyama's development method....except for Versus they want it to be an open world exeprience...using FFXIII's method of development on an open world game this will reuslt in it taking up to double to triple the development time even XIII had.

So have no dount, Versus XIII IS a development disaster and its development problems will only come to light post the games release....maybe with the huuuge amount of time they are taking the game may just be redone so much that the original flawed vision may come out as something that seems flawless....this may be the reason for its huge development time, Nomura realising how poor the development process was re-doing a lot.

All of what I said above also applies to many more Japnese developers (and they are admitting to this now!).

The western devs have such optimal and efficient development processes, for example The Witcher 2 is made on a  budget of $8 Million and on many technical and other levels it puts most Japanese RPG's this gen to shame! (from graphics, to environment size to other things).

Anyway a big lesson is being learnt by all of them and the Japanese are trying hard to improve their dev processes. As the current development model type should carry on into nex gen I feel we will see a renaissance in Japanese games development next generation!!

I agree.
According to Wikipedia, he directed and designed Final Fantasy VI, IX and XII.

Writing is more the problem. Ito is a fine director, but he has never, EVER been credited as a writer. And the FFT team would NEVER go forward with an Ivalice or Ogre Battle project unless Matsuno himself was the writer. He's the entire crux of the narrative and they NEED him to tell a good story.

Basch was just the main character during the early concept and planning stage. They hadn't even started actual development at that time. When actual development started, Vaan was already decided to be the POV to game's story. Matsuno designs games by coming up with the game design first and writing the story based on the game design. The game design for FFXII was to have the player exploring a vast world. Vaan was then chosen to be the POV main character as he would be exploring and and learning about the world in sync with the player.

Also, it was Akitoshi Kawazu that mentioned that they were pleased with the 40/40 from Famitsu. He said they were happy with the score but that he felt the story did not meet some fans expectations. He cited the reason as being the PlayOnline team wanting to make a really huge MMO size world, while the FFT team were not used to constructing a deep story in such a vast and open environment.

Lastly, when Sakaguchi left, he took only one FFXII staff member with him and that was Hideo Minaba. However, Hideo Minaba only went freelance and was still working on FFXII even though he had left Square Enix.