Do Western game developers lack effeciency when it comes to game development costs?

[cosmic_drift]

JRPGfan said:

Mar1217 said:
After seeing Atlus making a 7th Etrian Odyssey game, a series that only sold 350k at it's best. I kinda think this is the case here :)

Its like western game developers have a "go big, or go home" mentality (and either win big, or crash and burn).

Etrian Odyssey games are good & enjoyable, and Im glad someone is makeing them dispite them not selling millions and millions of units each.

Exactly.  What they don't understand is that they can allocate large dev costs to big projects and small dev costs to small projects, however, Western devs don't seem to understand that this is good economics.  I've always wondered why Western devs never make games for handhelds.