For the record FFXI was actually the most profitable game in their franchise, from a pure money expended to money generated ratio. Something like 12 million to develop the base game which turned over to ten times that profit in the first year and has been a cash cow ever since.

I remember that Yoshi P announced he had been promoted to be one of the Big Wigs at SE some time ago, so I'm not surprised he's being shuffled around and put in charge of other games as well. I don't see SE killing off the FF franchise entirely though. The games are at their core always experimental, and they can slap FF on any kind of game they want and it'll still be a legit game.