Square Enix will never make a true MMO for the simple reason that Square Enix isn't content with making money. They want to make ALL of the money.

We've seen how the Square Enix suits have unreasonable expectations. Tomb Raider sold a respectable 3.4 million copies in 2013, and yet Square Enix somhow considered it a failure for not reaching their sales target. Just how many millions were the suits dreaming of? FF15 sold 7.7 million copies by 2018, but Square Enix axed the second wave of DLC and then cannibalized the team. And, like most companies in the video game's industry during the 2000s, Square Enix abandoned FFXI (which was their star cashcow during the 2000s) in favor of trying to make a WoW clone, simply because WoW managed to reach 12 million subscribers, even though it is ridiculous to think that one could replicate a black swan. Now Square Enix is pouring their money into mobile games. Square Enix chases the biggest pot and ignores or halfheartedly plays the smaller ones.




The audience for a true MMO like FFXI exists. True, you won't get 12 million subscribers, but you will get more than enough to turn a profit. The popularity of oldschool private servers is a testament to that fact. Just look at Nostalrius. If you have 800,000 people wanting to have a true MMO experience (and you can charge $15 a month to them), perhaps you should provide a way for them to do it. Most people would say "yeah, that would be a worthwhile investment". But the potential profit of that isn't as high as the ultimate success of the genre, which suits use as their benchmark of success.