I have my doubts it will be, Nintendo must realise the benefits of being able to re-release you're games on a new system. Not to mention that it's pretty much impossible to keep the same system architecture(powerpc) for their new system.

That said even if it would be backwards compatible there will be people picking up the game if they missed it on Wii-U.

Who mentioned MM and OOT? Either way those games still look good today a remake doesn't change that or add anything to your stance, the games I mentioned highlight that what you claimed is flat out false as you claim it's down to being 2D and 3D when in actual fact it's down to art direction.

Funny thing is my most recent example would be RS2 which is 5 years old and looked good on hardware that was vastly inferior to the competition, some people didn't even think it was a Wii game when it leaked, all the others I mentioned are over 10 years old, JSR is 15 years old. Want some non cel shaded examples, REmake on GC that was made 13 years ago, RE0, pretty much most driving games like GT, PG, MSR etc..., MGS2 & 3.

The are many 2D games that don't look as good today and haven't aged well either, a lot of games on the NES, SNES, MS and MD have not stood the test of time visually as well as you claim, in fact lets look at FF for example a well known series, you knocked OOT and MM for being remade yet these games had their sprites redone for PSP and latter releases. Out of the 2D FF games only FFVI really stood the test of time visually and this is a case for just as many 2D games, it's all art direction that determines how well it visually ages.

A budget no higher than Xenoblade's is required to reach its scope. Just because devs haven't taken the same approach as Xenoblade doesn't it isn't doable.

FF games have production value much higher than what is found in Monolith games. Animation, rendering, everything is of much higher quality from a production value point of view. That makes the cost go higher. 

Still, do you know how much FF XV will have cost when all is said and done?

That's definitely a possibility. We don't know anything about next Nintendo home console, so, time will tell. And I'm confident that the game will sell well just on the WiiU. There isn't a big install base, but it has a ridiculously high attach rate, so I hope that it will do fine. 

A budget no higher than Xenoblade's with developers from Monolith Soft is required to reach its scope. Different people developing the game will have different costs involved and different capabilities. Some teams might be able to reduce the costs involved. But we are talking about the real world scenario, not some idealistic one. 

Yes, Final Fantasy games utilize pre-rendering and being on the PS4 they have more freedom and obligation to improve on things like realistic animation. Again, that is another reason why more assets will imply a higher budget than if one utilized solely in-engine assets on a less demanding platform. 

Of course I don't personally know, but a game that was conceptualized in 2005 and had its first trailer in 2006 and will only release around ten years later must have a pretty sizeable cost of development. Of course said resources were used for other games, so we can't accurately consider the benefits of the costs, but I think it is safe to say that even without the difference in quality of the assets and the benefits to other games for having its resources, FFXV would cost many times that of XBC:X due to development length alone.

You're just playing on words now. My point still stands. It doesn't cost that much to develop a game like Xenoblade. 

And, by the way, It's been confirmed that FFXV doesn't rely on CGI as much as older games to tell the story. The producer explained that because the visual quality from in-game graphics were now as high as they are, there was no need for them to make CGI as much as in the older games.

As for the cost of a game 10 years in production, yeah, it's a given that any FF game now cost much more than any Nintendo games. No matter the genre for various reasons. But S-E isn't the only developer making JRPGs. I don't think Tales of games cost more than a Xenoblade game to make. Yet they could very well decide to make there games perfectly on scale. When it comes to content, they're not that far behind already depending on the title. 

But that's beside the point. I think it's short-sighted to believe a game like Xenoblade is difficult to emulate. For all we know, an other developer will make a similar game that will be of better in the near future. 

Xenoblade's controls are not clunky. of course controls don't get better but they don't get worse either, the game was already made, so it stays the same.

I don't know what the sprites from some of the games I mentioned have to do with anything. Those games are great because of their everything.

I see no point discussing this further with you so let's agree to disagree.

He already gave a detailed explanation as to why xenoblade was amazing. yet, you keep ignoring it and saying he is talking out of bias.

We are not discussing whether or not the game is amazing. That has never been in question.

Your reply is an exact demonstration of why I think there is no point discussing anything with you.