Actually, CG development is not hugely expensive (or at least, it's not nearly as expensive as it once was), unless they decided to develop the engine from scratch.
So? If they were just "throwing money at it" wouldn't they have the same amount or not more cg scenes then XIII? I mean if they were just throwing money at the production, wouldn't it make more sense to have the stuff that is used largely to sell the games? But the fact is they didn't and that's because the production is far less costly then XIII. They aren't just throwing money at it and or instead trying to build a game that answers fans problems with the original.
So, a fully voiced cast, with the same poor writing
Your opinion on the writing has no point here. Your point is that they are just throwing money at the game to sell it? Where are you proving this? Fine they will spend money on voice acting, but the series has already established that it has VA, they can't drop that now. And in Japan that pays off, where VA's command a presence.
and poorly executed game engine.
Regardless if you think the game engine is poorly executed it doesn't change the fact that the ground work is done and that the game makes use of already built resources. So the production is far cheaper then anything. So again, where is your proof that its costs are "absurd" and that they "are just throwing money at it". When you use that phrase, it would imply that Square is just hoping that their great graphics and brand name will carry them through, kind of like XIII. But that doesn't seem to be the case at all. Not with the all the effort put into correcting the faults of XIII. Even they way they have handled the PR doesn't show that, not with constant updates, screens, and trailer releases. It's a complete shift from the way XIII was handled.
How does this equal raucous success and not just tossing money away?
Making a game that will sell at a way cheaper costs then the last game is "tossing money away?
Especially if you're re-using an engine on an IP that was already determined to be "ho-hum at best, failure at worst?
By who? Where are you getting of this from? I sure hope your mesassruing stick inst taking measurements from the internet, the same place that loves to harp on Call of Duty. You can't make these statements and then call them fact. Regardless the ip
Hell, if you can't convince even the "game journalists," the glorified PR department of big game companies, to like your game, what chance does it really stand?
Talk of XIII-2 has been pretty positive. Where are you getting any of your argument from?
Your claim was that Square is just throwing money at their games and hoping their problems go away? But I have yet to see you back that up. Where does something like XIII-2 show this, hell where does how they have handled XIV show this? A game where they acknowledged that it was failure and have thus kept it free and taken a big loss. Not only that but also changed the team completely and announced plans to completely revamp it.
