Please forgive me if this was/has been asked a thousand times before, as I am a previous VGM collector who has been out of the loop for about 3 years now and is getting back into it....

Can anyone tell me why Uematsu didn't compose the FF12 OST and won't be composing the FF13 OST save for the vocal tracks? Why did he decide to step down from the series he helped create? Was it his decision?
Or did SquareEnix think he contributed all he could and thought some new blood would be better now?

Or, as has been mentioned in the past, was it just too much work to stamp out a 100+ track score in a year or two's time...as he did so much in the past...(FF7, 8, 9 and parts of 10....)

It's interesting as I am so used to associating FF music with Uematsu.....

Well, I think in XII's case it was because Yasumi Matsuno got his regular team together to create the game, and Sakimoto is a part of that. I believe that XII didn't even start out development as an FF title but was shunted into that position as SE realised they needed a last hurrah for on PS2. As far as XIII goes I think Uematsu has gone with Sakaguchi to Mistwalker? It's pretty well known or assumed that Sakaguchi left SE thanks to the Spirits Within debacle, maybe loyalty and friendship compelled Uematsu to go along with him.

I have no idea if Sakimoto went with Sakiguchi to Mistwalker or not, but Saberman is correct that Sakiguchi is a part of Matsuno's regular crew, and for me personally, due to Matsuno's direction of the game, I kinda feel that a Uematsu soundtrack just wouldn't fit it very well.

As for FFXII not being an FF title from its development beginings... I could certainly debate that.

What I do know however, is Uematsu is composing the soundtrack for Super Smash Bros Brawl on the Wii.

As far as Uematsu leaving Square is concerned, if you remember back to between '96 and '97, Uematsu had a bit of a midlife crisis, resigned from Square saying something like "he didn't want to do vgm for his entire life".  Square managed to entice him back to compose FFVII, and with each of the newer FF titles his presence has gotten smaller.

And as far as Sakiguchi leaving Square due to the failure of the Spirits Within movie, I don't agree with that, as the worldwise success of Advent Children has proved that Square can do movies (even if I happen to think they should stick to games).

Personallty I think his departure is a good think, not only does it allow Uematsu to expand his composition style (I'm really interested to see how he takes to signature Nintendo tunes) and it allows Square to explore different musical venues for Final Fantasy. 

I know I risk getting flamed for this, but I feel that Uematsu's work on the FF series was getting stale.  The FFIX soundtrack, though nice, was nothing inspiring to me, and with the exception of a few tracks he did for FFX (Suteki da Ne, To Zanarkand) I found Junya Nakano's contributions (Besaid in particular) to be far more engaging.  But then again, this is just my opinion. 

Nah. I agree with you. In fact, FFXII is the first FF soundtrack since VII that I'm able to listen to all the way through. IX was just filled with filler.

No.  He said specifically he only wrote the opening/main theme of the game.

Beat me to it, Joe. 

Also, it does seem widely believed that Sakaguchi resigned after the failure of Spirits Within.  While Square may be able to make movies, Sakaguchi, apparently, can't!

Does anyone agree with me that Blue Dragon doesn't look very good?  It doesn't look like a game that would be appealing to an audience outside of Japan, actually.  Am I the only one who thinks this?

Yes and no...Yes, because it looks like it has the potential to be a cool RPG. No, because I don't anything next-Gen about it and I have enough RPG's on my current systems that are a bit more than "cool".

I'd pick it up if I had a 360. I wouldn't buy a 360 for it.

Very much looking forward to the soundtrack though.

@myaje: I didn't know about the mid-life crisis thing. I did think the number of uninspired tracks increased with the move to the PS era, especially compared to the way every track seemed important in FF6. Quality-wise, I was happy and his best tracks are still fine, but so many were done unevenly (almost painfully so for FF8 and especially 9) vs the wall-to-wall quality of FF6. I was pleased with most of his FFX ones and thought they were a good complement to Hama and Nakano.

OK, things as they come to me. Spit-takes for the most part, and if anyone can correct me, please do.

Regarding the story about Uematsu quitting, the only publication I read anything about that in was GameFan, and though I enjoyed the mag quite a bit, they were prone to running stories on the wispiest of evidence. If I remember right they once previewed a Chocobo fighting game that a Japanese publication had invented as an April Fool's joke. They also said Uematsu was going to put 100+ tracks into FF7, among other things. That said, there was an interview in another magazine around the time of FF9's release where he said something along the lines of wanting to graduate from FF, for it to be his alma mater or somesuch, so maybe there is something to the '96 fatigue story.

Regarding Sakaguchi and Spirits Within, from what I understand Japanese business didn't typically fire long-term employees until recently, and Sakaguchi's case was more like demotion, left to languish in the Malibu branch not doing a heck of a lot until such time as he chose to leave.
Square was burned by Spirits but encouraged by the positive reponse to the Osiris part of the Animatrix, so Advent Children was originally supposed to be a 20-minute featurette before Kingdom Hearts' success bolstered Nomura's standing and gave him the clout to bloom his baby into the 100-minute action-based film it is today. Of course, with Dirge of Cerberus sort of floundering (compared to expectations), and interest in the rest of the FF7 Compilation at a bit of an ebb, he may be brought back to Earth shortly.

Oh, and just to put it out there, FF6, 7, and 8 were Uematsu's peak for the series, in my opinion.

Yea I didn't know that Sakimoto was apart of Matsuno's team.....I guess he brings a different element to the FF world b/c his and Uematsu's styles are so different.....

I'm not surprised to hear that FFXII might not have been an FF game from the start.
It feels like Vagrant Story 2 from start to end.