Yeah, it's like Capcom not localizing the last PSP MH, I think they just have unrealistic expectations. If it doesn't sell half a million, who cares? (Then they wonder why their games aren't super blockbusters like COD)
There are more things to consider than just being profitable. Square Enix (at least once) wanted to make this a portable mainline FF series. Releasing it on a platform where 50k is considered a best case scenario (at this point) isn't very wise at all. It's better to wait in this situation and maybe launch a slightly more enhanced version on a current platform with a full marketing blitz behind the project than releasing it on a dead platform that has been proven to not do too well for them in the last 2-3 years.
Making some money is better than making no money.
Not necessarily true in the long run. And a company as big as Square Enix needs bigger sales than XSeed to see something as viable. 50k is HARDLY profitable for XSeed with some projects, it would be even less likely for SQEX when they can spend more money on getting at least half decent VAs and spend some on marketing as well.
Presumably they will eventually release Type 0 on iOS for $9.99
Uhh... Presumed by who? It won't be. The game simply isn't playable on phones, the controls are way too complex to ever be made to work on a touch screen (it's not far from being unplayable on PSP and would definitely benefit from Vita's extra analog stick and functionality) and the fast paced action RPG gameplay simply doesn't work on such cumbersome platform. It would fail as badly as Capcom trying to bring DMC to iOS did. They'd need to restructure everything about the game, which would be very costly.
but they gave up a chance of selling it at $40. Would they sell more than 50,000 units at that price on the PSP? Maybe not, but I'd have to think they would make their money back then and could sell it on iOS later down the line. RPGs have a long tail, it's not like they would lose many sales later by selling it on the PSP.
I hardly doubt 50k sold copies would be profitable for a project like Type-0. Especially since FF is the kind of game series that gets marketing and given the large number of voice actors, both of which are costly endeavours. If they are also to REALLY make this a "mainline handheld" FF series, it's better to wait for a better moment to release a game than to release it on a dead platform and later port it to some other. They'll lose the "all new FF never seen before in the US" marketing angle once they'd release it on PSP.
And again, Square Enix, so far, hasn't ported games like Type-0 to smart phones. Ports/remakes of old school 2d JRPGs like FFV or games that have been developed with touchscreen in mind like TWEWY, yes, but not action-heavy games that are almost too much for PSP (a handheld with quite a few buttons) to handle. Simplifying the gameplay to work on 1 or 2 virtual buttons would take all that the game is out of it.
Is there an actual source for this policy?
Of course there's nothing official because it's a shitty policy that Sony doesn't want too much exposure on since that would generate bad press (though, I'm pretty sure some publisher has implied that a physical release is out of the question for reasons other than themselves, meaning SCEA). But really, it doesn't get much more official than a lot of games like Okami HD, Monster Hunter 3rd HD Remaster, Resident Evil 4 & CV HD, MGS Peace Walker and such getting separate disc releases in Japan but not outside Japan. Stuff like Peace Walker had to be released as part of the MGS HD Collection in the west (good for us, though) to be available on a disc and the ones that didn't have more than one game (i.e. MH3rd and Okami HD), they only got a digital release.
SCEA is known to have had shitty policies in regards to PSP releases/ports of old games in the past (that's why NA didn't get some games like Tales of Eternia while Europe did), just because PS3, Vita & 4 will be more indie friendly and Vita & PS4 are easier to develop for thanks to not-as-complex hardware, it doesn't mean SCEA (& SCEE, possibly?) isn't still holding on to some shitty practices.
And regardless, it's silly to think that after Sony revamped their third party relations to focus on being developer friendly, SE couldn't get a physical release for what would be one of the biggest Vita releases ever if they wanted to.
A proper Vita remake with some new content? Yeah. But a simple "HD" Remaster the likes of MGS HD Collections? No.
I suspect that with SE's internal development issues (FFXIV and Versus being big black holes), they've just struggled to decide on which platform to port it to and where to take the manpower for the dev team from.
Well, first of all, Versus hasn't been taking any manpower off of other projects (other than future projects that those guys would develop once Versus is done, something I doubt a Type-0 would be, more like helping Osaka team develop Kingdom Hearts III), manpower has been taken FROM the Versus team to work on other projects. If it wasn't for the XIII & XIV disasters, I'm pretty sure Versus would already be finished.
I agree that they are probably waiting to see where it would be the wisest to take Type-0 to. Vita would probably be easier to port to (since it can already run PSP games very well), but 3DS might seem more lucrative due to a bigger install base (but porting it would probably require more work). Phones are probably out of the question unless they want to totally gimp the game.
