Quote Originally Posted by Lauront View Post
But taking a backseat in this context doesn't mean having it end. After all, XI is still around.

As for being insanely popular... by MMO standards? Sure. Even so, it's a playerbase of around 900k according to the recent census luckybancho did - down from 1,2m earlier on. That's not comparable to WoW at its peak.

If what they're (potentially) planning is meaningfully different to XIV, and had the potential to capture a greater number of players without cannibalising existing subs, would they not consider such an investment?

It's worth reading those links I posted. Based on them, I think they would, and it's implied in the fact that they consider this generation of MMOs to be a bit dated, therefore out of sync with the times, and probably less capable of capturing younger players. So if they just wanted to keep the game running with relatively low-cost, story driven content that kept it at more or less its current player numbers, which provide a steady stream of profit to them, they might do that - that's what I mean by "take a backseat". Steer away from any big investments in it. As the new MMO would effectively be a departure from XIV's style of MMO, they might not even be concerned about sub cannibalisation.

I've highlighted the relevant sections:



...and...



I think the main question is whether they could pull together the resource to do it, but a lot of the challenges around this for XIV stem from its combat design and early design decisions, which such an MMO would, by intention, deviate away from.
Frankly, from these quotes, it doesn't sound like there are any plans to do that kind of MMO. Just ideas related to the question (mmos in general), and they are content with perfecting FFXIV as is. I don't see what relevance any of this has. There is nothing worrying about these statements at all.

We would just continue to pursue and perfect what we have so that we aim to become the ultimate MMORPG within our current generation.