This post is so amazingly and exactly correct I don't even know why the thread is continuing. Kobun has absolutely hit the nail on the head here people.
And for the individual who said Sakaguchi should've gone to Sony for funding, I'll tell you why he didn't (or more likely did, but chose MS instead); there is no way in hell Sony would ever give Mistwaker the amount of cash that MS did. Fact.
$20m for each of these games is a lot of money. That is full scale, premier budget kind of cash, that only a handful of titles are given per generation. Right now, there is no reason whatsoever for Sony to dish out that kind of cash when they have a shitton of third parties begging to throw RPGs at their systems, not to mention they already have Level 5, who I believe is their premier second party dev in Japan right now (I don't think they spend more money on anyone else, let alone for RPG's). L5 is more established and has a proven record of delivering profit making hits (Rogue Galaxy brought in close to ¥1.7b in just it's first week, which is just under $15m USD).
Why throw $40m at a guy who hasn't had a hands on role in game development in over 5 years? MS on the other hand, has all the reasons in the world. First and foremost, they are ridiculously desperate to make a name for themselves in Japan, and to get legitimate jRPG's on the Xbox.
Mistwaker went to MS because they now have the capital leverage to begin projects on systems that will actually generate profits for themselves. ASH is a perfect example. Now don't confuse this with Mistwaker using MS' funds to make ASH, they aren't; what they're doing is they are taking advantage of the cash influx from MS, which is keeping the company alive and afloat, to venture out onto other, more profitable projects. Mistwaker doesn't give a shit how much these titles sell (you damn well better believe they ain't going to see a penny from 'em), all they want is to build a name brand right now.
