It's not so much glossing over what he says. It's more a matter of ambition vs reality.
I like that he places quality over quantity, but you still need the quantity to add up. At the end of the day, you still need to pay wages. Plus, it's not like the Xbox was being made by a company short on cash and with little in the way of marketing budget. What was that for the Xbox? First 500mil, then another 500mil, I believe?
If you are a game developer and know a system's hardware (Xbox) really rocks the boat, and you have a mega-corporation in the guise of Microsoft backing it with oh so very much money, I don't think that is a very risky proposition to develop for. With the initial marketing budget, I think Team Ninja knew that the Xbox was playing for keeps.
It really wasn't such a tough decision to make, IMO. Now if this was, say, a couple of generations back, when the 3DO and Jaguar were in the market, and Team Ninja decided to develop games for either one of those consoles, then I'd say Mr Hayashi is really putting his money where his mouth is.
