Assuming Square would direct it towards something new and different their shareholders care about sales, why do you think XV is in the state that's it's in, so even if they could doesn't mean they would, not in the slightest.
They have more than a couple of divisions to work properly on different stuff concurrently, and a new IP (not even AAA, you can create great and profitable games like Nier: Automata)/another untouched IP/a new mainline FF is going to get more potential sales than the umpteenth return of Lightning. These might be better in the shorter term, but they mud their library and ulitmately prevent it from growing, just doing the same stuff over and over, throwing shit to a wall until it gets stuck and basically working as patches (because XIII were patches in more than a few ways -namely, linearity, more combat freedom...-. A sequel to XV would be the exact same. It's a very sad thought).
Btw, if Ito isn't the director, I won't throw shitfits like many do with everything Nomura-related. He's one of many directors within a company that's slowly starting to grow again (and also happens to be the most talented one of the old guard). They're a huge company, it's if they try to get Toriyama or whoever to direct the project when you should worry. Everything has been a mess ever since the FNC was announced, and only recently, with ARR and XV (dissapointing, but a good game that had potential to become a great one with more time or better management), they've gotten to a level that's not embarrasing. If they can't find decent people both creatively and management-wise (Tabata is less of a creative force, unfortunately), then I don't know what to tell them.
I'll always be pessimistic with S-E, but denying the potential, especially when there are so many teams, seems a bit absurd and mostly just emotional talk. They have a shitton of money, resources, relationships and investors, they have a from decent-to-good seller in XV, as well as succesful mobile games and MMORPGs: they definitively have talent over at, say, BD5 to produce a good game within FF standards of before, even if they have to adapt to a SP structure.
You're honestly just letting the frustation get to you and extrapolating everything that went wrong with XV. And no offense, but you don't strike me as a person who was too interested in the series beyond Versus, so of course you feel like that, and that's fine.
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