So when this was first announced (Mid 2011), the Vita wasn't in anyone's hands, crossbuy was a fantasy concept, and the game was rumored to be $30, and published by a different company.
Now the Vita has been out for almost a year, Cross save/buy is well established with things like PSASBR, a multitude of PSN games, and soon with Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, crossbuy has been released by a variety of developers, and now Atlus has their hands on the game (and they've been pretty good supporters of PSN + deals and sales).
It seems like it's in a pretty good position to possibly become much more than it originally would have been. Could Sony give it more of a serious marketing push now? Could it become a Day 1 Digital + Crossbuy title? Maybe have an exclusive tie with Vita PS+?
The timing now just seems like it could be better for the game, than it's original release plans.
For comparision, I purchased Awesomenauts on XBOX 360; which now is leaps and bounds behind it's PC version, due in no small part to it's console publishers filing for insolvency around it's release, as well as annoying XBLA / PSN "patch / content dev cost" issues. If someone said that game could have waited another 6~12 months for console release, for the sake of a more solid publisher / being able to piggyback a better online content deal after the success of Minecraft 360, I would have been slightly annoyed, but happy to wait.
Not hearing anything for the past year-and-a-half isn't all that bad, if what's been worked on over that time is worth the wait.
