Call me a sceptic, but I don't understand just how degrading the graphics is going to improve their abilities for storytelling and gameplay. If they have it in them, then they have it in them. If they don't, they don't. I honestly don't imagine that when they came up with the storyline for FFXIII that they intended on half-arsing it. I actually believe they would have come up with the story before the graphics were made. I don't think they would do this any differently regardless of the systems they are designing for. You make the story before you put together the graphics. For me, that's logic. Maybe I don't understand the game development industry enough. Hmm. As for gameplay, we all know from other FF's that they're capable of putting together gameplay, but from what I understand the entire time they made FFXIII it was with the intention of focusing on just battling and storyline. Which is something I disagree with, as do many, but again - it's not that they lacked gameplay ability, it's that they were told not to use it. For whatever stupid reason.

I disagree regarding them passing the point of being far too diluted "quite a while ago" - they haven't made a single player game with less than an 80 rating since the PS1 generation. It's not that the games don't sell and aren't rated at the bare minimum of "very good", but more that they spend so much on the development that they struggle to make a profit despite the high sales. Also, while FFXIV was a disaster, I wouldn't say FFXIII was. Sure, you might not like it, but then I didn't like FFX and it's one of their highest rated games. You can't deny success, and it is judged by ratings and sales. Sure, some areas can be criticised and SE will hopefully learn from that (as they seem to be doing lately, fingers crossed...), but the overall package still has been liked more than disliked and that's not bad or "diluting". FFXIV, though, well... we'll have to see what happens there in the long run. I'm cautiously optimistic, and at the very least have respect for SE for pushing so hard to make such dramatic changes to the game in order to help it turn good.