End game... Bored. The facts.

[Stryker]

Niche markets are very hard specifically because they're niche. Any big company is going to want to get as much as they can rather than cater to a niche market. It's like in any business. Would you rather be Wal-mart and make massive amounts of money or be a small farmers market? Both can succeed but companies have CEO's, Boards, and shareholders they report to so they're not going to go for peanuts.

As it stands, I don't think 14 is not set up to find a "niche" market in the gaming industry. It's hinging on drawing people with the FF name along with pulling some mechanics from other games. Now whether that's the recipe for success or not, only time will tell. With the end game being what it is, the new content needs to start coming out soon or else they're going to lose more subs.

MMO's are now a competitive genre due to the massive amount of continual revenue you can earn from it. CCP who makes Eve has basically just had 1 game for the past decade. They recently released Dust for some added revenue but they're a prime example of what a niche market in the MMO industry really is.

Oh and actually SE hasn't been doing to well. Over the past 5 years their stock has dropped significantly. They've had many flops and with the JRPG market being poached by smaller companies and their FF brand not doing as well.

http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Best_s...are-Enix_games

I don't know how reputable this source is, but if these numbers serve to be correct then the older FF's did a lot better than the newer ones. This doesn't have anything newer than 13 on it of course so it's a bit dated, but it goes to show you how they've definitely lost hype behind their FF series.

http://www.vg247.com/2012/11/27/fina...enix-director/

Also an article on how important it is for the relaunch to be successful. I've seen articles like this a few places last year when 1.0 shut down. The same article has a link saying that 11 is their most profitable game the company has had. So most likely means that they invested a shitload of money into 14. Both versions.