No kittening way Kishi is a sellout. He's either suffering from mental illness or he may have lost some rights to Naruto, which means he does not have complete control over the story. Him continuing a new series without the money of his fans is nearly suicidal.
Kishi is most likely beeing manipulated (well, that might be too harsh, let's say influenced) by SP and a select few editors of Shueisha. Combine that with Kishimoto's mentality (weakwilledness, social awkwardness, lack of human/social interaction, most likely shyness, etc.) and it seems like he lives in a dreamworld.
I mean he says that Hinata is more popular while Sakura is not, which might be true for non-Japanese countries but not in his main market...
Edited by Decius23, 14 December 2014 - 09:48 PM.