personally, i think it's comparable to a band deciding they want to deviate from their usual style and experiment a bit. sure, it may alienate members of their usual audience, but they're being creative, doing what they want to do and if they pull it off they'll have thousands of adoring fans that appreciate what they've done.
the squarenix designers were set to work on a platform that's new to them, looked at what doors this new technology would open for them and, as artists, made the creative (if financially risky) decision to create the game that they have. and, i might add, surpassed their sales projections in doing so.
this is why everyone complaining that this game is inaccessible for them are missing the point. and they'll be back with Ok Computer X-2 later on in the year, so why complain?