Well I am new here and I thought you guys already heard of the big debate.

Along with those comments Shinra made came these comments in an interview conducted in the Japanese Final Fantasy X-2 Ultimania Guide, with Kazushige Nojima, the WRITER of both Final Fantasy 7, Final Fantasy 8, Final Fantasy X Final Fantasy X-2 and Kingdom Hearts...

Ultimania Guide: Is there a connection between Final Fantasy 7 and Final Fantasy X?

Nojima: After Shinra quit the Gullwings he got enormous financial backing from Rin and went to the Farplane to start extracting the Mako energy used by the Vegnagun. But the system for utilizing this energy could not be completed in his generation, so far in the future when space travel was possible, the Shinra Company was founded on another planet... or something like that. That would be a thousand years or so from this game's story.

When asked if this was final, or something like that, Nojima said that that is what he feels about it. Thus, since he is one of the main writers of the two games, that has a lot of weight.