One of the concerns I've read (although it's been uncommon to see) has been that Square Enix might try and force Final Fantasy IX to be a franchise. The reason for it was because of all the things that could be seen as a push to expand the universe.
There was an animation adaptation rumor (which is also rumored to potentially be cancelled since the development studio that was supposedly working on it declared bankruptcy). This was supposed to be a short story about Vivi's "children" years after the end of the game.
There was also the recent short story book. This shows a small portion of Vivi's backstory during the time between when he fell off the cargo ship and when he was found by Quan (his "grandpa").
There's the fact that Square is going out on its 25th anniversary more like they did with VII before the announcement of the second part of its remake, compared to VIII which got very little, including a lot of merchandise (and people are wondering if the new figures and art might be signs of the designs and styles that a potential remake might use). This merchandise included vinyl record with an alternate recording of Melodies of Life.
Final Fantasy IX also literally shows up under "franchise" on their website, despite being a very old title which is currently not a franchise. Some people claim Square includes entries under that header for titles which have a lot of merchandise on their store... which Final Fantasy IX currently does.
Then there was the statement by the Final Fantasy XIV team lead, something about if a remake of IX were to happen, he could see it being split or something due to it being a huge undertaking? I can't remember the specifics on this one.
This is all alongside the rumors of a remake itself... which now has a similar rumor to the animation.
I personally didn't think any of that signified an attempt to establish a franchise out of it, but you never know. Final Fantasy IX is known to be more beloved by the community than the sales totals suggest, and companies like money, so if they see an opportunity...
But I don't really care about that. I just want to see a remake, and this has been my stance before the original rumors even came to light with the nVidia leak and before anyone else was talking about it. I've always wanted to see the game made better.
But i guess newer FF titles are meant for newer audience into the franchise.. and not us old fans
This shift happened all the way back with Final Fantasy VII. The retrospective I linked to from Resonant Arc earlier touches upon this in the development history and how there was a shift in development goals after that time due to the success of VII (and VIII). There were internal disagreements on which direction the series should go in. The higher ups and some of the then-new senior team members wanted to go with the newer sci-fi and realistic direction since it was bringing in more fans and money, and series creator Hirnobu Sakaguchi wasn't onboard with all of the changes and wanted the series to remain flexible in style and not abandon so many of the older core things. One team worked on VIII, another on IX, and after the lower success of IX (compared to VII and VII) and after the Spirits Within movie did poorly (which Sakaguchi was involved with), Sakaguchi moved on from Squaresoft, they merged with Enix, and the series not only continued to change, but arguably increased the rate at which it does.
Current entries barely resemble the original VII at all (the original VII is now much closer to IX than it is to most entries after X). So it's stuck to its goal of constantly chasing mainstream things from other games and even other genres in an attempt to broaden its appeal against the wishes of previous fans. People these days commonly complain about how "chasing the modern audience" is what's wrong with many games (including this series), yet it was the success of VII that set it down that path, the same entry that was the first for so many.
The chances of this happening seems to increase as a series becomes older, because tech and gaming trends eventually change. And they were changing a lot two to three decades ago, let alone the time between then and now. Final Fantasy is a series with perhaps the most split fan base, because the series itself has become so split in what it even is. When you have to ask yourself what to expect from the next entry in a series because it has been hopping style and genre (!) so much, then maybe it's too much change. Like, what will the next one even be? An MMO? A single player JRPG? An action game with Devil May cry Combat? A dark games of Thrones story? A remake? You shouldn't have to ask these things, and that's the problem with the series and it's why the fan base is so split. The overall market is now so broad but each title is so different that everyone just fights over it, haha.
That is a lot to digest but I get what you mean that question really is too broad and personal preferences also matter in decision making, but I get the general idea where I should go. This gives Star Wars vibe because most people will probably start with VII on PS1 first or VI on SNES for example.
