XVI is most likely under very very very low-key conceptualization. I'd really hardly call that pre-production. It's no different from people imagining or daydreaming.
It's probably as much in "low-key" conceptualization as XIII's original PS2 version was while XII was being developed, that is, the core X-2 team was already actively developing it while waiting for some reinforcements from the XII team to help finish it (which never happened that way because XII took so long and XIII moved platforms).
XV and its sequels are most likely developed as a one whole package. XV's development can in essence be described as XV's sequels being in pre-production much like how Xillia 2 was. This undertaking is massive. It's not a simple matter of SE being able to handle multiple big projects at a time.
Maybe they are developing it as one big thing, but it would still mean that XV team is the one that makes XV-2 and there are more people at Square Enix than only XV team who you say would essentially not be making anything. Much in the same way Mass Effect was always planned as a big trilogy, but they had only one team focus on only one Mass Effect game at a time while other teams could work on Dragon Age and a super massive MMO.
Square Enix has already shown they have no problems releasing several FF games in a kind of mixed order, so I don't see why you're so adamant to deny any possibility that someone like Ito, who hasn't done anything too meaningful in 8 years, could actually have been doing something during all those years and has finally gotten the chance to move on with his project as he can actually have some resources directed at his project. It's more than likely that someone like him has been working on the concepts, pre-production & maybe even a bit of early development of a mainline FF for at least 2-3 years already while they've waited for the XIV debacle to be over. Your denial is doubly irrational because it has been Square Enix's aim for YEARS to have at least some kind of meaningful releases from each of their big franchises (KH, DQ, FF) about once a year. So yeah, I'm sticking to my schedule in my earlier post of being at least something relatively close to what SQEX is planning to do for the next generation (plans can change, as XIII & XIV prove).
The scope of the company has narrowed considerably and much of their efforts are being focused on KH3 and XV at the moment. Anything outside of that for pre-production is perhaps one or two people daydreaming about their next project.
So in short, I'm disagreeing with you. XVI is hardly in what we would traditionally call being in "pre-production."
Now that they aren't pushing out an MMO with a crazy-tight schedule, what do you think all the freed up workforce is doing? Osaka team is the one doing KHIII and they were never tied to XIV ARR and will never be tied to XV's development outside of Nomura having to divide his attention between the two games, so they don't count in this. Part of that has gone to help finish up XV, obviously, part are as equally obviously working on XIV expansions, but there's likely still enough people to have at least a few teams of 30-50 people who have been moving forward with some projects that could have been in pre-production for years but haven't moved into production because they haven't had enough resources. Now they should have, as the resource hog known as XIV ARR isn't there anymore. An MMO propably requires as much effort to develop as 3 non-MMOs, doubly so when it's rushed out in only 2+ years like XIV ARR. Now that there's nothing of the sorts in the way, they can be much more efficient in developing other games.
I'm not saying they're not doing pre-production on XVI. I'm saying that they're prioritizing the XV project much more than they are with XVI. It's not a simple matter of "thinking big enough." It's about being rational and getting the priorities straight by gleaming from how the industry actually works. Anything outside of that understanding and scope is pure fantasy which you seem to revel in often.
They are prioritizing Final Fantasy XV, but they can't put everything else to halt or put all of their eggs in one XV basket (what if the action RPG approach is a failure in that it fails to capture new audience yet drives away a lot of old fans who like turn-based/ATB and they have no work done on XVI?) and they DEFINITELY can't wait until FFXV-2 is out before they do something else big. XV is a big focus right now, but XV-2's production hasn't really begun yet. It doesn't matter if they've planned all the possible FFXV games as a big thing from the start, they won't have several teams working on just that when they need a lot of filling for their release schedule for the next 3-4 years, that's just fact of how Square Enix and a lot of other publishers work on even big trilogies.
XVI is likely in development (there are more than one insider saying this, AFAIK) and it's fully possible it'll be released before FFXV-2 because FFXV-2 is likely a 2-2,5 year project even if it's a sequel (so if XV is released in Q1-Q2 2015, then XV-2 is at earliest a Q1-Q2 2017 game, more likely a later 2017 game). They CAN put another FF in between XV & XV-2 if they have started XVI's production early enough, which I believe they have.
I think that's still being optimistic Famassu. Square has been having issues developing a new Final Fantasy since XII. I'm not expecting XVI to be released until the end of this generation.
No doubt it's optimistic, but I don't it's completely irrational. As I pointed out, even if we just look at their Final Fantasy output during what most would agree is unarguably their most troubled time as far as FF development goes, they put out quite a significant number of mainline level FF games in just ~4 years (in addition to a huge presence on handhelds). Now they've all but abandoned their handhelds (their highest profile handheld release in the future is mostly outsourced) and they at least say they have learned from Crystal Tools, so nothing like XIII & XIV1.0 should happen anymore (not in relation to the quality of the game, and not in relation to the highly troubled development histories both of those had)
And I think that the reasons for such troubled developments have been mostly in how they've tried to reach for the stars with too ambitious plans for the platforms/situations in question (while not having efficient tools to do so). FFXII suffered terribly from Matsuno & Co first planning to make something much more grand than PS2 could deliver. They had to scale back from a lot of huge plans (a fully streamed world, or at least almost, a much grander story than we got, some freakishly detailed history/backstory for everything etc.). With XIII, they were also planning for something big, but the struggles with Crystal Tools and some uncertainty of what the hell they were doing with XIII, in the end, caused it to be the barebones, linear run that it was.
But with each passing generation it's relatively easier to get the kind of epic shit out of consoles that some people at Square Enix have been envisioning for a long time. Doing the epic shit is still a lot of time-consuming work, but it's probably work of actually creating the content instead of first spending a lot of time just thinking of & coming up with the tricks & ways of making it even possible before moving on to the execution.