There was a duo of reasons there. Earlier on its life most of the production/development studio ended up expecting the game to fail. And had it done so Sakaguch

There was a duo of reasons there. Earlier on its life most of the production/development studio ended up expecting the game to fail. And had it done so Sakaguchi was planning on quitting and returning to university life. So it was somewhat literally his final fantasy at the company, which turned out to come true. Really funny how such things work out. A slightly worse role of the dice and nobody would ever have known of his talent for games, or perhaps our timeline missed out and his real talent was in music, which is what he was initially studying.