FFXIV is not a failure, never was.

[Malakhim]

Currently right now comparing its status with other next gen mmos, FFXIV is a failure. Maybe it will rise and change its status, but its not exactly a success right now is it.

To be fair, what other next-gen MMOs are out right now?

Rift and DCUO are the only ones out right now that I'm aware of. People seem to like Rift quite a bit, thought whether it'll have staying power remains to be seen(Age of Conan I'm looking at you), and there seems to be a general panning of DCUO as being a pretty bland knockoff of City of Heroes/Villians(I'm just going off several review sites, podcasts, and forum posts though). I guess we could count LEGO Universe as well if we wanted, but that seems to be more reminiscent of Minecraft if anything.

The last contenders seem to be Guild Wars 2 and TERA, and from what I've seen, I'm banking on GW2. If there's anything ALL of us should have learned from FFXIV though, it's that it's best not to set expectations too high on anything until release.

Edit - Oh yeah, and SW: TOR, that may have a shot, although I won't be getting into it as I'm not the biggest Bioware fan and I think I've been burned out on Star Wars. Good luck to EA, though. Apparently it's the biggest investment they've put in a game ever.