They will literally make diet animal crossing instead of 100 housing wards.

[Avoidy]

The only convincing argument I've heard for why islands are doable but housing isn't, is that the islands are samey as hell so they don't utilize as many resources as a unique house that has to be "on" and running at every moment's notice.
Do I ........ accept this limitation? Nope. I think at this point the multi billion dollar company can just buy more space to give players more wards. I swear to god people who don't even work there and know as little about SE's situation as you or I have been playing cover for Square for years while they've bungled the housing situation left and right. I think I've heard every excuse in the book for why this 2 billion dollar organization running one of the most successful and profitable MMORPGs of all time can't just acquire more resources to give the players the thing they advertised. Or why, failing that, they can't just listen to their community about its needs for 2 minutes and stop catering to an FC demographic that basically doesn't exist anymore. I swear SE really thinks FCs are like 50 happy people doing submarines together and not just 1 guy and his dozens of alts buying up multiple wards. Then islands come out and on day one are so popular that we can't get into our... houses/apartments. Hinting that they share the same resources. It was such a slap in the face, even if housing and islands don't use the same amount of resources necessarily.

On the topic of islands, people compare it to animal crossing but it's totally lacking in all the charm, customization, and multiplayer fun of animal crossing. Islands represent everything bad about animal crossing. All of the negative things that animal crossing fans put up with, like timegating and the feeling of "not a lot to do while I wait," is just the primary feature of islands, whereas in animal crossing it's the crap you push through to get to the good times. Island sanctuary doesn't have a good time. You just grind until you can unlock a new timegated feature. Then you wait for that feature to appear. It sits there and does nothing. Then you grind some more. That's it. And every milestone or so, they'll toss a new clothing item in to keep people doing it. We could've had so many other things in place of the development time this system took. I don't even want to think about it.

[DPZ2]

I think I've heard every excuse in the book for why this 2 billion dollar organization running one of the most successful and profitable MMORPGs of all time can't just acquire more resources to give the players the thing they advertised.

There are valid excuses.

Final Fantasy XIV net sales are at 28.6 billion yen for 3rd quarter 2023 (posted in November of last year), in a company whose entire Digital Entertainment Sector posted 117.1 billion yen in net sales.

The operating income for the entire Digitial Entertainment Sector (profit after expenses) was 24.5 billion yen. (Roughly 190 million US dollars).

Out of the 163.3 billion in net sales, Final Fantasy XIV net sales are just over 17.5% of total sales. The game is not the 'savior of Square Enix' anymore.

It is certainly the most recognizable property, but browser/mobile games made more than double the net sales of the entire MMO division (which includes other properties), at what I understand was a much higher profit-to-expense ratio.

Large 365 billion yen companies reinvest profits to ensure they remain 365 billion yen companies.

They've done so consistently for this game (new Logical Data Center in North America, new Physical Data Center in Oceania, more systems to produce more housing across the board in all data centers).

You are frustrated that they aren't immediately spending more on the things you want. Since anything that comes from the development team and Producer is considered to be A Promise(tm), I do not find it frustrating that they refuse to provide their plans for the next five years of the game.

[Avoidy]

You are frustrated that they aren't immediately spending more on the things you want. Since anything that comes from the development team and Producer is considered to be A Promise(tm), I do not find it frustrating that they refuse to provide their plans for the next five years of the game.

Immediately? People have been asking for instanced housing for years.
Your own data describe how XIV, a single game, makes up nearly a quarter of Square's net sales where their "Entertainment Sector" is concerned. I never called XIV the "savior of Square Enix" in my original post, so I'm not sure why you put that in quotes, but the amount of revenue they rake in from just this game is massive by your own admission. It's weird to me that you'd post the data and then try and downplay it in the very same post.

Imagine being a company and looking at your revenue pie chart, and seeing that nearly a fifth of your total revenue comes from a single source, and then just actively ignoring that source for years when it asks for something fairly standard because it might require a small investment in additional infrastructure. I simply can't accept it, sorry.

And yeah, I'm well aware that the revenue this game generates goes to funding other projects. Spreading risk through diversification is normal. But reinvesting in successful ventures is normal as well, and it just doesn't happen enough for what this game brings in. Genuinely not shocked either way though; square is basically Japanese EA, and like someone else mentioned earlier, they know their players have nowhere to go so they're fine to do the minimum. I just think it's gross is all.