So, the advent of Wave seven and heavy bombers had gotten me thinking that FFG might have a bit of an issue in the medium/long term for X Wing. While the SW universe is vast and detailed enough that they have ships to choose from for years, there are only a limited number of niches within the game for those ships to fill. Once you have a cheap swarmer (Z95/TIE Fighter/Z95), an interceptor (A Wing/TIE Interceptor/M3A), an all rounder (X Wing/TIE Advanced/Khiraxz), a Heavy Assault fighter (B Wing/TIE Bomber/Y Wing) an elite fighter (E Wing/Starviper/TIE Defender) and a Heavy Bomber (K Wing/TIE Punisher/?) are there really very many slots left?
Sure, there are gaps to fill: The Y Wing is more of a turret fighter than a heavy hitter, and the Imps don't really have an equivalent. The rebels don't have a fixed forward firing large base ship, and scum don't have a large base turret or a heavy bomber. But all of these gaps can, and likely will, be filled within a wave or two: The TIE Aggressor as an imperial Y Wing, the Scurrg as a Scum heavy bomber, Dengar's Punishing One as a scum turret ship.
The question then becomes: What happens next? FFG seem to have only a limited number of options, none of them really good.
1. They could declare X-Wing basically "done" as far as new ships go, and just release the occasional Aces type pack or epic ship. This seems extremely unlikely, given that X Wing is a major cash cow for FFG. This almost certainly won't happen.
2. They start releasing "gimmicky" ships that are differentiated from existing ships by providing a variation on the rules specific to that particular ship. The problem here is that gimmicks are extremely hard to balance. Price them too high, or make them too minor, like the defenders white K Turn, and the ships become unlikely to see much play. Price them too low, or make them too powerful, like the old phantom, and they completely dominate the metagame and squeeze everything else right out. This is obviously fraught with difficulty.
3. They start releasing ships that very clearly retread the ground of existing classes, like the T-Wing (a slightly worse A Wing) or the R-41 Starchaser (a Z-95 competitor). This seems like the most likely, unfortunately, but will almost certainly result in the new ship either being worse than it's predecessor, and therefore not selling well/used much, or better than its predecessor and completely eclipsing it (ala the B Wing vs the X Wing). This then leads to people clamouring for a fix for the weaker ship, which is how you get power creep.
Long term, I feel like the only solution is increasing the number of factions, and doing so relatively soon. This would probably involve new starter packs, featuring, for example, an N1 Starfighter and two droid Starfighters (starting the "Republic" and "Separatists" factions) and/or a T-70 X Wing and two black TIE Fighters, starting the "Resistance" and "First Order" factions.
This has a number of advantages that I can see over the status quo:
1. It doesn't solve, but certainly slows down the above mentioned problem of a shrinking number of niches. By expanding the factions, FFG can keep releasing ships and making money without ending up with multiple near-identical ships for every faction in later waves.
It wouldn't mean ending support for the original factions. Adding one new ship a year per faction would be very viable, and Aces type packs could also be released semi regularly to keep people interested, not to mention any new upgrades released for other factions. But by slowing things down, they delay the niche problem to the point where it will become relatively minor, and move from a medium to a long term problem.
2. Doing this would help keep movie ships on the tables. Star Wars is one of the most valuable brands in entertainment history. The very fact that this is a Star Wars game has probably meant it's audience is an order of magnitude larger than it might have been had it been based on a less well known or original IP. Keeping that Star Wars identity strong and visible to potential new players will certainly be part of FFGs marketing strategy for the game.
But consider: Ever since wave 4, and particularly since Scum and Villainy, the chances of games being played entirely without any movie ships has been growing, and will only keep growing if FFG are forced to dig deeper and deeper into more and more obscure EU sources. Imagine, for example, someone watching a game in a games store with a Brobots list vs a Decimator/Phantom list. Not unlikely, they're both very viable in the current meta after all. Or, in a few months time, a K-Wing/Z-95 list vs Bossk and some Khiraxzs? Would that person necessarily recognize that he was watching a Star Wars game, as opposed to just some space combat miniatures game?
If not, then that's a brand recognition problem that might slow down new player growth. On the other hand, stick an N1 on that table? Instant recognition; even if you don't like the prequel movies, you'd recognize it as a Star Wars setting. The more movie ships are available relative to EU ships, the lower the likelihood of games being played publicly without a visible link to the SW universe.
3. It opens up a new entry point for new players. Any competitive game that's been around a few years starts to develop higher and higher barriers for entry, primary around the number of expansions you need to buy to be competitive. This isn't so much of a problem for established players; those purchases are spread over years. Bit for new players who want to build a potent list, the initial outlays would be probably in excess of a couple of hundred bucks (in Australia anyway). That's a big barrier. But, if starting out with a new starter kit, FFG could use their experience to make sure that competitive lists could be built for the new factions with a relatively small number of purchases, lowering that barrier of entry, confident in the likelihood that once people start playing, they'll want to spend more over time.
Low entry barriers will be particularly important if Disney's new films are successful and Star Wars gets back into the mainstream of pop culture the way Marvel has: That's going to mean more games, more potential players, more potential forgone opportunity if they decide it's all just too difficult and choose not to get involved.
4. Diminishing returns on the EU. I stand by what I said at the start of this post - there are dozens of potential designs from the EU that FFG could use for future X Wing expansions. And a lot of them are really cool and deserve their place in X Wing - the Assault Gunboat, the CloakShape, the Skipray Blastboat. Some, like the Recon-X and the TIE Scout, might even help worth the niche problem. But sooner or later, the quality, recognizably and interest factor in those EU ships starts to wane, and you're left with the obscure little ships that some comic book writer invented in the 70s for a few frames which was never seen again. Even if the new movies generate a bunch of new ships (likely, but not guaranteed) from the OT era they're need to do so at a pretty astonishing rate to keep up with the demand FFG would have ( at two waves per year, 6-8 ships every year is a minimum). I know some people are virulently anti-prequel, but surely something like the Aethersprite or the ARC-170 belongs on the tables more than something like the TIE Raptor or the Manta Class? For me, it's no contest.
So, for those reasons, among others, I think that expanding the number of factions is not just commercially inevitable for FFG, but also beneficial for the game. I hope it goes ahead, personally. Any other thoughts?
Oh, and yes, I know it makes no narrative sense that, in this scenario, you could have Separatists vs First Order, or Republic vs Rebels. So what? It makes just as little sense to have Biggs and Porkins escort an E Wing against an Inperial squad of Mauler Mithel and a TIE Phantom, but it's perfectly legitimate within the game. Anyone who didn't want to mix eras wouldn't have to, and anyone who did, well, more fun for us. 
