Wada: "FFVII remake = 10x the length of FFXIII project."

[Slothy]

However, to say it's going to take 10 times as long because of graphics is a load of rubbish. Elder Scrolls IV took 4 years to make and it makes VII's entire world look tiny. It has much more dialogue (all fully voiced).

True that it's got more voice acting, but they did do it with what seems like a half dozen voice actors and it really wasn't the highest quality. I could honestly have seen them banging out most of the voice work for that game in a short amount of time. Obviously writing and editing would make it take longer. And graphically, Oblivion reused a lot of content like textures, character models, and other 3D art assets. Mind you, that doesn't lend any credence to what Wada is claiming here. It actually makes it more obvious that he was greatly exaggerating.

I have a strange feeling that a VII remake might not be that far away actually. Why else would Square-Enix be making statements like this that make no sense?

It's possible that they just keep getting the question and are getting tired of answering it; hence the exaggerated answer he gave.