There have been quite a lot of screenshots of FFXIII/vXIII lately as well as the promise of a playable demo some time this year. Whether Japan will see the game itself this year depends on how you interpret Nomura's ambiguous comments.

And yeah, Nomura definitely stated at one point he'll be distancing himself from the FF series. Versus looks like it will probably be the quintessential Nomura FF game (for better or worse) so I guess he figures he can't really go anywhere from here. I haven't heard anything about Kitase but it wouldn't surprise me if he felt the same way.