Japanese companies don't fire employees, they "promote" them until they retire. Still, I don't know about his handling of the MMO entries, but he was a pretty big figure when it came to Secret of Mana and Chrono Cross, not to mention he worked on the first four FF titles and was partly helping with the DS remake of FFIII. He was also the only important guy at Squenix who was still interest in doing more with the Chrono franchise but I guess we can finally place the last nail in the coffin for that franchise ever seeing the light of day again.

Now that Tanaka is gone, only Akitoshi Kawazu and Hiroyuki Ito are left from the original Square team.