Just thought it would be interesting to see answers to this question from FFXI players.

I've got two issues, personally: hardware and social.

On the hardware end, quite simply I don't have it. For the PC, I'd need to shell out $150-$200 for a graphics card that is realistically capable of playing the game (the "minimum requirements"are a bald-faced lie, in my opinion), and that's money I just don't have, especially not for just one game.

I could say that I'm waiting for the PS3 version, but between my white-knuckled grip on firmware 3.15 (Other OS) and being on my second YLOD (at $150 a pop), I don't think I'll be able to play a new PS3 game.

But overall, my greatest concern is social. I can see no way of elegantly transplanting my social linkshell from FFXI to FFXIV. Even if I had the hardware to play the game, not everybody in my linkshell does (insufficient PC, Xbox instead of PS, etc), and they'd be left behind. And even if everybody in my linkshell was able to play both FFXI and FFXIV, there's still the problem that we'd be balkanized: two separate linkshells in two separate games just don't add up to a single cohesive group.