They used to run television spots for FFXI in America in late 2003/2004 before Promathia was announced/released. They still run online advertisements for it everytime they release a new collection edition/expansion so I don't understand why people keep saying they never advertise in America, they obviously don't advertise it as much anymore but they used to when it had just launched.

They also advertised the hell out of FFXIII with whatever song they had in it, I'm sure they will advertise FFXIV when they launch it on PS3 too. As for how many players, I don't know or care as long as they continue to update the game regularly which doesn't require that many subs (certainly it does not require a million subs, or even 500k). In my opinion the game would be better served if it doesn't cater to certain segments of the MMO community, but that's just me being selfish not wanting to share a server with them obviously it doesn't speak to SE's goals.

If you want to see a company that doesn't support/advertise their MMO's look at Sony. This is not Sony, so as long as the population doesn't increase at all after PS3 release (hard to imagine that would happen) I'm not too worried about them supporting/pushing the game.