Final Fantasy XIII-2 Announced - PS3 News at IGN

And so it is now official. Squenix are hoping to milk a cow (or maybe rescue a game with promise).

The most curious aspect of what has been revealed is a 2011 Japan release. Which would probably mean December-ish, roughly 2 years after the release of XIII. What this suggests to me is that there will be a lot of reused content (and perhaps that stuff they couldn't fit in).

What is more promising is that there is a new character, which hopefully means this won't be a rehash of old concepts.

So what are the thoughts around here? Will it be better/worse/the same as the original? Should we care?

I am slightly optimistic. XIII had a lot of beautifully detailed areas already, so hopefully in the 2 years they can expand it out and make it a fully-fleshed world. And maybe make some use of the mythology that they have created. It does beg the question why they didn't just wait 2 years to release it in the first place, but what's done is done.