SE. Get it together.

At this rate, a meteor will hit Earth (this happens in FF7 right?) before FF7R is done...

Hilarious.

Should've expected no game in the first place. Reminder: What was he doing with FFVXIII all these ten odd years besides twiddling his thumbs and trying to turn it into a musical... 

woke up and im still annoyed by it. dammit se

At E3 2006 Square Enix announced Final Fantasy Versus XIII along with Agito XIII and of course Final Fantasy XIII.
In this thread i will give details and info on the development timeline of Versus XIII and why it took so long to be released, in hopes that people will stop being misinformed and will stop going on about the 10 years it took the game to come out or how Nomura takes too long.

First, we need to look at a short timeline of FFXIII's development.

From Japanese Magazine CG world. Issued in January of 2010.

A: Jan 2005 ~ Jun 2005: Developed PS2 version. 
B: Jul 2005 ~ Sep 2009: Changed the platform to PS3 after the reception of E3 FF7 demo.
C: Oct 2005 ~ Jun 2006: Developed the E3 FFXIII demo but interrupted the development to make an engine. 
D: Jul 2006 ~ Sep 2007: Working on story and storyboard in a smaller team. 
E: Oct 2007 ~ Jun 2008: Officially started development. 
F: Jul 2008 ~ Sep 2008: Alpha version completed. A 360 port announced. 
G: Oct 2008 ~ Dec 2008: Working on the playable demo. 
H: ~ Jun 2009: Fixing the game based on the reception of the demo. 
I: Jan 2009 ~ :Working on the 360 port.

Square enix started developing an all purpose engine with the intent of using it to develop all of its big HD titles and even the smaller scale ones. This included all 3 FNC games.
Versus XIII was always meant to be released AFTER FFXIII and was also meant to use the same engine. So, Versus XIIIs development is first delayed by the fact that there is no engine to develop it on, at this point the game is stuck in pre-production just like FFXIII.

October 2007 is where FFXIII actually goes into full production and here is the point where we can assume that the Versus XIII will also start creating assets and such.

Here is the second reason Versus XIII will be delayed again. The white tools engine (later renamed crystal tools engine) was very difficult to work with and the XIII team was failing miserably, in turn holding back every other game that was to use the same engine.

SE statement about this way after the release of XIII and why it turned out like it did.

Because we were so focused on creating an engine for next-gen hardware that could be utilized across all platforms, we made the mistake of trying to accommodate every single project that was in progress at the time. In hindsight, it should have been obvious that it would be impossible to fully satisfy all of those needs.

"While Final Fantasy XIII was in production, the development of Crystal Tools caused significant problems and delays. The programmers spent much time on taking all demands from staff into account. Based on this feedback, Murata's team tried to adapt the engine to the needs of several game projects, which proved to be virtually impossible and prevented the engine's specifications from being finalized. Furthermore, as separate groups were working on the individual tools of the engine, there was no comprehensive software documentation to ensure usability and compliance"

As all of this was going on, the staff involved directly with the actual data construction had no choice but to start working before the specs were finalized. Their main concern was that they could not be able to keep up with the schedule if they continued to wait for final decisions.

"Unable to wait any longer, the Final Fantasy XIII team had no choice but to begin creating assets to keep to the game's production schedule. However, the lack of specifications resulted in these assets being incompatible with the engine. In the end, it was decided that Final Fantasy XIII was to be the principal focus of Crystal Tools and the game's team began cooperating with the Research and Development Division more closely to receive the required tools and specifications"

The FFXIII team had essentially wasted their time making assets that could not be used in the final game. In interviews around the games release Kitase had stated that the dev team had so many unused assets they could make a whole game out of them.

Very early Versus XIII prototype using the kh2 engine and some concept arts


Then XIII dev team needs help to quickly finish the game and release it on time since at that point they had to build a full HD FF title in the span of a little more than 2 years

(October 2007 - December 2009).

early 2008

According to Famitsu, game director Tetsuya Nomura said Final Fantasy Versus XIII has been put "on hold. This is because the entire Versus team is helping to finish XIII"

The Square Enix PR team quickly tried to damage control

When free, some staff from the Versus team have been helping with the XIII team on development of Final Fantasy XIII. Development for both titles is continuing as originally scheduled.

This is quite obviously an attempt to save face, it was obviously bad press for a SE director to just come out and say "the game is on hold" because it makes it obvious that both games are going through development hell.

After the release of Final Fantasy XIII in late December of 2009, Nomura starts giving regular unofficial updates regarding Versus XIII through the 3rd Birthday twitter which was still in development back then.

Nomura also says that the team stopped using Crystal tools as its main engine and started using a heavily customized game-specific engine for the gameplay mechanics with the lighting being done by the Luminous and the Crystal Tools just doing the real-time graphics.

Early 2010 twitter updates show the game is finally progressing for real. First tweet.

Versus has had many difficulties, and past methods of production have been completely inapplicable, but these are the difficulties of birth, so we are working hard. We have a lot to announce, but because we’re going in order, I can’t say too much yet. There have been many questions regarding fields. It’s not complete open world. It’s like the 2D FF games in HD. That is to say in terms of looks it’s not a top-down view it’s like the screenshots that have been released. You’ll move through the world from that view. Versus is currently undergoing voice casting.

June 2010, Story is complete

According to Dengeki PlayStation magazine, the game’s scenario is fully complete. That means the story and script are fully written and finished.

Also June

– You can go anywhere on world map (excluding the mountain because it is an open field) 
– Battles are completely seamless 
– Insomnia modeled after Shinjuku 
– Versus will be huge 
– Destructible environments 
– Cloud movement are done by physical calculations 
– Loading only when changing area
– People couldn’t believe when they saw the destruction of a road in realtime 

September of 2010
Revealed today on their Japanese Jobs site, Square Enix is looking for battle planners and level design planners for Final Fantasy Versus XIII,

Still not in full production

Final Fantasy Versus XIII isn’t in full production, quite yet. Nomura revealed the game is currently only being worked on by the development team’s core staff. They’re right now experimenting with a lot of “challenges,” and are preparing.

October 2010

Revealed today on their Japanese Jobs site, Square Enix is looking for battle planners and level design planners for Final Fantasy Versus XIII

TGS 2010, footage behind closed mega theater. Limited viewing

TGS video offered a first look at gameplay — that is, someone was clearly moving a character around. I’m pretty sure that character was Noctis. A series of clips showed Noctis moving around through the streets of a European-style city, first surrounded by other people, and then alone at night. Next, the footage switched to Noctis moving about a vast field. Here, he was joined by monsters, some massive. When referring to the Versus XIII TGS showing, I use “footage” instead of “trailer” because what we were shown wasn’t actually a trailer. The footage was all off-screen, filmed off presumably development units by the development staff. It was set to the same music from past trailers, but there wasn’t any attempt to make a promotional trailer out of the various gameplay clips.

January 2011, First public look at a playable build. Huge progress in just one year

Meanwhile earlier in September of 2010, Final Fantasy XIV 1.0 was released. The release of the game sparked immediate player backlash and negative critical reception. Yoichi Wada back then CEO of SE, said that XIV greatly damaged the brand name of Final Fantasy and he apologized numerous times. The Staff were changed and YoshiP took over as the director of XIV as well as other key positions in the team were handed in other senior members in an attempt to fix the game.

The team could not fully mend the game in its existing form as its engine (Keep in mind this game was also made in Crystal Tools engine) and server structure were already critically flawed. This meant that, in order to save XIV, the entire game needed to be rebuilt from the ground up. The decision to launch a new version as a reboot instead of a whole new title was driven by the need to regain player trust, which was felt would not be done by just scrapping XIV

April 2011
The rebooted version, initially titled Final Fantasy XIV 2.0, began development in April 2011.

June 2011

in an interview with Tetsuya Nomura, it was revealed that Final Fantasy Versus XIII hadn't yet entered full production. He went on to say the date for the next showing of the game had been set.

August 2011

In early August for the 500th issue of Dengeki PlayStation magazine, Nomura stated Final Fantasy Versus XIII had a change in schedule and would not be shown at Tokyo Game Show 2011 in September.

After that the game went into complete silence for more than a year, with Kotaku writing an article in July of 2012 about Versus XIII being canceled and its assets re-purposed to be used on FFXV.
http://kotaku.com/5927645/rumor-final-fantasy-versus-xiii-is-dead

XIV a realm reborn AKA XIV 2.0 was finally released in 2013. Wada in his official business report in November of 2012 
http://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/news/pdf/13Q2_OutlineofResultsBriefing.pdf

Stated

"The unsuccessful launch of FFXIV caused a negative chain of events in other areas across the businesses. One notable example is the significant delay in the development of new HD games titles"

Keep in mind that until November of 2012 FFXIV 1.0 was still being updated by the dev team while at the same time the 2.0 version was being developed. To achieve this SE poured all of its resources into rebuilding XIV from the ground up in just 2 years. Meaning, everyone and their mothers was working on XIV including the VsXIII team.

At some point between June and October it is decided that Nomura will not be the director of FFXV anymore.
This is an assumption one can make by this

http://www.siliconera.com/2013/10/17/square-enix-forms-final-fantasy-committee-ensure-quality-future-final-fantasy-games/

Square Enix forms a Final Fantasy committee, its members are all directors that are currently directing a Final Fantasy in development.

Motomu Toriyama - at the time developing Lightning returns
Naoki Yoshida - Final Fantasy XIV: Realm Reborn
Hajime Tabata - Co-director of Final Fantasy XV
Yoshinori Kitase - Final Fantasy 7 Remake?

If by that point Nomura was still the director of FFXV he would definitely be part of this committee but he is not and the official answer of SE for Nomuras absence is that "he is busy". We later learned by Tabata himself that he became the director of XV in December of 2013. The decision must have happened way earlier though otherwise it doesn't make sense.

It is also apparent that something had changed because Nomura in June said that he would show new things in September at TGS 2013 and despite that, SE showed the same exact E3 footage. Nomura was also vague for the first time when asked about a sequel for FFXV, was not as clear as he was some months ago and he said that "it is still not decided" despite him being confident at E3. At the very least it shows that things were changing and talks were happening internally about the fate of the project.

In very early 2014 it was also announced that Yoshinori Kitase stopped working on FFXV to start up his own project and at this point it is pretty much confirmed that they were talking about FF7R.

Yoshinori Kitase has been officially removed from the FFXV project despite his name being originally attached to it as far back as 2008. Kitase notes that he is starting a new, separate project up by himself.

FFXV remained vaporware from TGS 2013 to TGS 2014 where it reappeared completely changed, with story changes, changed gameplay, changed director and a different tone and feel about it.

So yeah, that's the whole story. 

Versus XIII was in actual development but not in full production excluding the very early and irrelevant 2007 ps2 prototype - late 2009 ~ mid 2011 (1 and a half year) 

FFXV with Nomura as director and the Versus XIII story intact started development from scratch - mid 2012 ~ some time in 2013 (about 1 year)

FFXV as we know it and as it was released - Late 2013 ~ Late 2016 (3 years)

....."The company stresses that the job recruitment is by no means a request for last-minute replacements"

Square can take their time. With the outcome of FFXV I'd rather they just take their time.

Damn, I was hoping part 1 would be out this year. Probably won't be out til a year or so into the PS5's life. It seems like SE is overthinking this remake. They already have half the work done for the game. Story, characters, and art for the environments. All they have to do is record audio, recreate the environments in 3D, and retool the combat if they so choose. And I'm not saying that those things they do have to do is easy, but in 3 years you should have at least been able to create a demo, with a release the following year.

If they kept it as the same game and just redone the "polygon mapping" and upped texture resolutions it is possible that in 1 or 2 years they could have made the remake (Ubisoft makes massive games in a 2-3y spam and that is without having story, mechanics, characters, etc defined).

*sigh* gotta wait until E3 I guess..