Apparently according to Errin Van Duine, if SE will respond to the rumor it will be sometime next week

"Oh yes, one other thing to consider. Game PR doesn't work on weekends so the earliest Square will respond - if they do - is next week."

http://www.novacrystallis.com/?p=3110

So, who knows, maybe they will respond tomorrow.

They did all those things without knowing how badly they would be recieved.

You can tell it was highly ambitious, Yochi Wada wanting 10 mil sales makes it the most ambitious game they've ever made.

The story and the characters were 'horribily told' as you put it, because the developers were incompitent. Not because they wernt ambitious. Yoshinori Kitase saying at one point that FF13 would exceed all expectations is ambitious.

Switching development from PS2 to PS3, developing a multi-million dollar game engine, costing at least year of development time is haphazzard ambition. And ultimately it seems they have paid the price, through serious damage of the FF brand.

And I think FF Versus 13 will be renamed as FF13-3. Those games were originally designed to compliment each other, and I think they will use the popularity of FF Versus to market FF13-3, because I dont think they can justify making FF13-3 on FF13-2 sales alone.

I think the original plan was to make FF13 a lot more popular than it was, and using that game as a spring jump into the FF13 Fabula Nova Crystalis universe. It seems to me they cant justify extending that universe to other games like they originally intended because frankly FF13 has not been the FF7 type compilation they wanted:

This diagram shows the original plan for FF13. Frankly I dont think this series achieved what they wanted it to. And this diagram shows their ambition. This was designed to be bigger than FF7. But is didnt work; I think FF Versus will be used to either finish off the series, so they can move onto something else, OR they are planning something else. Like relaunching the FF13 brand, at the Lightning event they have planned in September. Either way I think Versus is very important to that vision. I think it might be FF13-3.

Firstly, Square's expectations were 6 mil copies.

Secondly, you can't generalize like that about such a big cast and complex story and ignore the part westernization took in shaping how the story was delivered. Vaguely saying they were incompetent about an essentially 45 hour movie is not a great contribution, especially when the protagonist was rather well received.

Thirdly, one major reason for a possible FF XIII-3 is the way XIII-2 ended and providing closure/showing the darker side of XIII. I don't see how Versus story could possibly fit in.

They are coming out with FFXV out on all platforms till the end of the year. It is exactly because of money that they probably went and cancelled it. Versus is small fry compared to a numbered title.

It was?! But there was nothing there...

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

Irrelevant, I'm not getting into a discussion about the quality of FF13. If you want to examine the quality of that title, refer to reviews and examine the sales of FF13-2. I'm not getting involved in any discussion about the quality of FF13. I merley responsded to Runas post.

At this point I dont think SE are interested in their original plan of making the FF13 compilation bigger than the FF7 compilation (that alone indicates their ambition of the original title), as you can see from the diagram I used before. I think at this moment in time, they might be thinking about cutting their losses and moving foward with Kingdom Hearts, hence why Versus would be cancelled. Finishing the story of FF13-3. And moving onto other things such as FF15 with the other production team.

Its possible SE looked at the sales of FF13-2 and thought their prospective market is too small to be considered worthwhile in relation to the production costs of Versus.

However they have spent enormous levels of capital on the production of Versus, and I was under the impression that game would showcase their new Luminous game engine. Thus I doubt it would be cancelled.

I doubt it. If SE want Versus XIII to die quietly, then why release the song "Somnus" as a dlc in final Fantasy Theatrhythm.

But but but... the DLC came out A LOOOOONNNNG time ago in Japan.  Like 3 years ago or somethin'! So this is not a true real legitimate argument!

...Is what I was told. ¬_¬

Being a gamble and being ambitious are NOT The same things.  There's nothing more to it than that. You know how everyone complained about Dragon Age II being simpler and more boring in spite of it being more action packed?  same deal.  Making a game simpler but prettier is not ambitious, even if the game series has been known for complexity and depth.  Simply changing course and trying something new does not mean it's ambitious.  yes they wanted lots of sales...but they ALWAYS want lots of sales, there's nothing special or outstanding about XIII aside from its admittedly good (if generic and uninspired) graphics.  It's just a simpler version of something that already exists.  To be ambitious is to strive for something new, to do something outstanding, to stand head and shoulders above others in a bid for wealth and popularity.  

to be ambitious requires action, not simplicity.