I think the biggest problem that someone brought up is that for a long time, there was a new main Final Fantasy every year, to a year and a half at most. There was always a team working on the next game, even for the next generation. FFX, for example, came out around the end of the first year of the PS2's lifecycle. What happened this time is that we kept getting a new FF every year, but they were spinoffs. Instead of working on the next FF, Kitase and co. were making FFX-2, Dirge of Cerberus, Crisis Core, Kingdom Hearts (then Kingdom Hearts Spinoffs), Dissidia, Revenant Wings, the list goes on and on.

If I'm not mistaken, by the time they started thinking about FFXIII, the PS3 was a year away from launching. I think they just need dedicated teams to making original, good games. That's what's going to bring in revenue for them, moreso than the spinoffs I would assume, which they could just outsource or give to newer developers to cut their teeth on, like Kitase, Nomura, and Nojima all did themselves.

Quote Originally Posted by antagonistgb
Basically. There's no reason they needed to stretch out the tutorials for half the game.
I see you guys talking about the character split ups, and I feel it was mostly for telling a cool story with different characters omre than a nything. Honestly, I wish they broke up the duos over the rest of the game, spliced in with 3 party teams instead of just slacking off for the second half. I think I'm one of the few who likes the first half of the game more.