Remakes are okay to an extent. As I was never allowed to own a console until the PlayStation and the Nintendo 64 were released, I originally missed out on a lot of the early Final Fantasy titles. I was only able to play FFVII and FFVIII on the PC until I got my PS2 (I had yet to learn of the existence of ROMs at this point), and that was about when Square Enix had just started churning out the first ports of the early games--Anthologies, Chronicles, and Origins.

Since it's release, I think Final Fantasy I has been rereleased three times for three separate gaming consoles: there was the PSX release, the GBA release, and the PSP release. Quite honestly, I think this is quickly becoming ridiculous.

I understand, to an extent. The release of Origins was a welcome one. The release of Dawn of Souls was a smart business decision by Square Enix given how much the video game market has moved towards handheld gaming. The PSP release, however, was excessive.

I mind remakes far less than ports. As long as they put enough effort into making the game more than a just rehashed experience (as I hope they've done with FFIV DS), they're welcome to it. Remakes seem to kill ports, too, which is always a good thing, I think.

Certainly SE expected these types of results. As others have mentioned, 2007 lacked a new Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest title; and by now Square Enix is well aware what their biggest money makers are. I'm hoping both Last Remnant and Infinite Undiscovery do well. If both of these succeed, I hope it queues the company to continue to produce more original titles.

I also think that we should expect to see more multiplatform titles. The pros and cons of multiplatform games are an entirely different discussion, but I do think that multiplatform releases allow companies to reach wider audiences and thus encourage them to be a little more experimental in your approach. Releasing a new RPG on both the Xbox 360 and PS3, for example, is a lot safer than releasing it on only one of the two (PS3 because of it's lower market share--unless that's changed, I stopped paying attention to console wars--and the Xbox 360 because of its stigma as a primarily FPS console).

I hope this is a wake up call to SE and not a queue for them to assume an even more conservative business model. Squaresoft and Enix were known as leaders of the RPG genre--you can't be a leader by rehashing things over and over, and I hope they know that.