First things first, the main Final Fantasy games sell more than the sequels and when you abandon the main games to make sequels that sell less, what is Square really doing as a company? Losing money thats what.
Umm, the sequels took about 18 months each to make as Square is able to reuse assets already created. They may sell less in total but the profit margin may be higher due to the decrease in development cost. Also Square made $150 million in the last 6 months so I don't think you need to tell them how to make money.
I would be 100% fine with the sequels if they didnt stop focus on the main series. When X-2 was being made, XII was also. I think its a matter of priority and I dont think Square is handling that well for a while now.
The XIII sequels didn't delay XV. It was being made by two different teams similar to X-2 and XII.
Now, lets get to the mess that is Kingdom Hearts series. Biggest problem here was putting out all these entries on so many different platforms that is considered cannon, and still ignoring the main games. PS2, GBA, DS, PSP, 3DS, Cell Phones, How many gamers were really going to purchase all of these systems to see the entirety of the story back when these came out? Its a horrible business decision to do that and kind of bogs down the series because its literally all over the place. So what did they have to do to make up for this? Release 1.5, 2.5, and 2.8, only problem now though is you start making people double down on the rare cases of those who did buy that extra system to play one of the games on the many formats they came out on. so making 1.5 HD and beyond was actually a great decision for the company, but kind of screws over gamers a little bit.
How are they making people double down? The collections are more there for people who didn't play the games on all the different systems and want to catch up with the series. If people double down it's because they want to. No one is ever forced to buy a game and the idea that companies screw people over by re-releasing something is ridiculous.
I guess it was kind of pointless to have even bought Birth By Sleep and Dream Drop Distance that were the bigger releases on the separate platforms BUT at least they are better versions of those games with the recent collections,
So are you going to be pissed with SEGA if they make Shenmue HD since it screwed you over back in 1999? The PS4 wasn't even out when Dream Drop Distance came out on 3DS.
and the new people that are jumping on board make everything easily accessible (which im assuming is alot because they sold like hot cakes), but again you run into the problem of buying games over and over. Which is actually a very smart business move in the long run and cleans up the mess they made when all these games initially came out. KH is milked heavily.
So earlier you complained that Square is mismanaged but then said the way they treat this series is smart business...
Square has had problems any way you look at it, and it seems they have struggled to manage their company, and keep their fan bases happy at the same time, and hope they dont piss off more people.
FFXV sold enough copies in it's first day to make back the money for development costs and has been generally well received. As I said earlier the company made $150 profit in the last 6 months and had well recieved games like FFXV, Deus Ex, Hitman and I Am Setsuna in the past year. They also have around a million people paying to play their MMO every month. Square is doing fine as a company.