Was it ever made clear whether or not XVI will be an MMO or single player?

[Eldevern]

According to the informations I could gather, FFXV development was profitable since the first release day.

[SaitoHikari]

Yoshi is more are less the lead of the 3rd division which is the Luminous Engine division. What is told for sure is they are working on a "new licence AAA". But since about two or three years, there are a lot of speculations about the question to know if the licence FF will continue or not. I can't find where it was but one of the old FF producers said (I think it is no other than Sakaguchi), more or less : it could become ridiculous to release a FF30 or so. FF will have to come to an end, a way or another, a day or another.

But I hardly imagine they will kill the licence. They will probably create a new Final fantasy, with a complementary name that will become the main name.

I'm fairly sure the Luminous division actually isn't under Yoshi-P's oversight.

Before the restructuring, Yoshi-P's division was the 5th Business Division, which oversees MMO projects and Dragon Quest Builders, of all things. No one yet knows for sure if the Luminous team is now part of Yoshi-P's division as a result of the restructuring that consolidated 11 divisions into 4, but it's unlikely. Yoshi-P would have already talked about it otherwise.

The current assumption is that the Luminous project and the new project are unrelated. Remember that SE has been recruiting for this new project for at least 2-3 years now, and it is already leaving pre-production and going into full blown development (whereas most of the other big name SE projects were announced/revealed during pre-production). Right now, the current guesses are...

BD 1 = BD 1 (FFVII RE) + BD 3 (KINGDOM HEARTS) - AKA the Square/AAA division
BD 2 = BD 6 (DRAGON QUEST X/XI) + BD 11 (OCTOPATH/BRAVELY DEFAULT) - AKA Enix Division/co-development with other dev teams such as Platinum Games (the old BD 6 collaborated with Platinum to make the Nier franchise)
BD 3 = BD 5 (FFXI/FFXIV/DRAGON QUEST BUILDERS/UNANNOUNCED PROJECT) - AKA MMO/occasional odd projects division
BD 4 = BD 4 (OPERA OMNIA) + BD 7 (LORD OF VERMILION) + BD 8 (SECRET OF MANA REMAKE) + BD 9 (VALKYRIA ANATOMIA) + BD 10 (MILLION ARTHUR) - AKA mobile division
Luminous Productions (and their unannounced project) are thought to be part of BD2

(The weird thing is that Dragon Quest X wasn't part of the old BD 5, but Yoshi-P did manage that game before heading present day FFXIV. It's possible that with the restructuring, management of DQX may have moved to BD 3, though there's currently no way to know for sure.)

If I -really- had to guess what the new project is... I'm starting to think more by the day that it's not actually FFXVI, because making that AND managing the MMOs seems like an astronomical effort. I'm more inclined to think it's a new IP or a spin-off (possibly a FFT-style game, as the FFXIV team has a lot of former FFXII/Tactics staff), like how Dragon Quest Builders was a spin-off game with mechanics drastically different from the main games and sold/was well-received enough to get a sequel.

If it is FFXVI and it gets released in a timely manner, the team is either incredible at resource management (despite what we may say to the contrary here on these forums), and/or the former BD1/BD3 were really incompetent.

[Eldevern]

...

I have to admit the corporate structure and the internal function are kinda confusing. The Luminous Engine can be run two way : who is building it (pure technical : mathematics and development) and who is using it. It is not totally closed but that's two different jobs anyway.

Official Board

Yoshinori Kitase : Division I
Yuu Miyake & Yosuke Saito : Division II
Naoki Yoshida : Division III
Hirokazu Nishikado : Division IV

Strange but if Taito is named, Tokyo RPG factory, Studio Istolia or Luminous Production are not (see). Weirdly I can find who is board in Tokyo RPG factory, Studio Istolia or Luminous Production. That what confused me.

Anyway, people who speculate based on the illustration of the recruitment page... the aeronef... it is a concept art of the Protector in Abalathia (I checked in game, there's no doubt, it is exactly the same aeronef).