What was the Japanese reception to Nier crossover?

[linayar]

The raid is canon to the game but I guess you can say that the whole Nier universe behind that isnt. For example if its true that Yoko Taro said that this raid will be canon in his stories, then that would in turn mean that somewhere Nier and all the other games also happened in the FF14 universe. I guess in that case its easier to say that these connections are not canon, so the Nier raid happened in FF14 but that does not mean that there is a whole Nier universe out there.

I would agree with this. Yorha is what matters to FFXIV, not Nier.

It doesn't have to stick to the FF franchise BUT this is the "main course" : one of the main purpose.
And I see you consider anything else but the MSQ as side content ? You don't consider Raids (8 and 24) as part of main content ?

They're main attractions, sure, but if they're optional, then of course they're not the main content. You can go through the expansions without ever unlocking any raid or alliance raid except for Crystal Tower.

Also, anything added not "fitting" the FF franchise is good as long as it sticks to "side content" (that's the way I feel about this).
I see "side content" more like "bonus content" if you prefer : something added to the game but not "part of the main elements brought by the expansion".

I view "side content" as being off to the side, just like the name would imply. So any content that is optional is off to the side. That doesn't mean there are no major side contents and minor side contents. Raids are major contents; they are part of the main attractions, but still optional. The game will not force you to play them if you don't like to do raid contents. It's why their stories are disconnected from the MSQ (until Crystal Tower). Some might feel that Coil should be part of the MSQ, but that's a different topic altogether.

I don't know much about what has been said in interviews/faq, but as a wild guess, I don't really think they put Nier as raid because Nier is canon to the FF universe (if that's what you imply)
I think they put Nier as a Raid because they wanted to bring a lot of stuff for this collab, and didn't fit into a simple duty/trial. so they brought that phat *ss and crushed the slot allocated for "ShB Raids".

No, I'm never under the impression that Nier is canon to FFXIV, just Yorha. Even if Yorha is canon to Nier (which is not guaranteed), that still wouldn't make Nier canon to FFXIV. It's a fictional story, so both FFXIV and Nier could have different interpretations of Yorha's story.

Not gonna lie, the "canon" concept was pretty alien to me some months ago. so i'll try to see if i'm getting it correctly :
Basically, is considered "canon" anything put into a medium by their author, am I correct ? Or are there any more than that ?
If it's only what I stated, then the face that things "makes sense" has nothing to do with the fact something is canon.

Basically, yes, but the author also has the right to say if not everything they put in is canon. So a work can be official (meaning originating from the actual author), but not canon.

But that doesn't remove the fact that it doesn't make sense to fit "X game" content into "Y game" if they are unrelated whatsoever.

That's not exactly what happened. Yorha is original content to FFXIV. It is not fitting Nier to FFXIV because you're not forced to play Nier to do Yorha. It's a collaboration, a fan service, that is canon to FFXIV, unless otherwise stated.