Oh man keep Bioware and Bethesda as far away as possible. I usually hate that kind of crap, but when I do like it, it's for different reasons that make me want to play Final Fantasy.

Square Enix, and Japanese developers as a whole, are going through a spiritual crisis right now. They're struggling to stay relevant in a new ecology. Quite frankly, video games as a whole have taken a turn for the worst over the last few years, and it scares the living crap out of me every time Yoichi Wada talks about western games, developing games with western flair, and the possibility of handing FF over to a Western developer.

Instead of compromising they should stay Japanese and work to find ways to keep their own style but make it better than ever in a new environment. They should look to Valkyria Chronicles and Demon's Souls, two of the best games I've played this generation, for a clue. Those games showed you can utilize new technology and trends to make the best of the old even better.

What they should do is pull a Metal Gear Solid 4. While the game did make some sacrifices for a Western audience, Kojima showed that the Japanese can use this technology better than anyone else (everyone except for Naughty Dog and Guerilla Games, that is).

This is what Final Fantasy did with VII and X. Regardless of our differing views on them, those games really ushered in "next gen". It was supposed to be up to XIII to do the same, but they missed the deadline by a couple years now and now it just looks like another non-exclusive PS3 game. I doubt they could get a leg up on Sony's 1st party studios now, but it's something they should look into. That, and keeping Final Fantasy what it's supposed to be.