Its not recent though, companies always go where the money is. Just look at Activision. Don't know why this may be surprising to anyone. (Not referring to you)

Square Enix hopes to make the Dragon Quest series more successful overseas and that's why the PS4 makes a lot of sense. Sure Dragon Quest XI would sell a lot more on the 3DS than on the PS4 in Japan but worldwide I'm not so sure the 3DS has the edge.

And yes 3DS games cost less than PS4 games to make but PS4 games can also be sold at nearly twice the price and they can be ported for cheap on handheld devices in a couple of generations. It would require a remake if they make it on the 3DS now.

The logic behind the decision of Square is most likely truck loads of cash by Sony. Dragon Quest IX was on the DS, not the 3DS btw.

Your example of TW3 makes no sense. You're saying console has more prestige over handhelds because the graphics are better and games are bigger and now you say the opposite with TW3? You really can't see the huge contradiction in your logic? CD Projekts Red went multiplatform to increase their userbase. By making Dragon Quest a PS4 exclusive Square would be doing the TOTAL opposite of that.

Yo-kai Watch is all the hype in Japan and gets tons of media exposure there, this again contradicts your logic. Dragon Quest isn't popular in the West, so don't even bother bringing that up.

Dragon Quest sales in the West have always been pretty terrible, why would that change all of a sudden after such a long time?

B.E.L.I.E.V.E.

...in millions of dollars spent on marketing.

It won't. Its just wishful thinking, and after the DQ games bomb in the west we'll most likely see them go back to next to nothing for DQ  games.

Because that's what Square Enix hopes to change? They mentionned that the team working on Dragon Quest wants the franchise to become a success in the West and they have "ideas" to make it happen. They didn't have that motivation before. That's what's changed.

http://www.gamekult.com/actu/les-projets-de-yosuke-matsuda-pdg-de-square-enix-A144311.html

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=999068

And the PS4 is the best medium to make it happen right now. If they really only wanted to satisfy the core DQ fanbases then they'd make it for the 3DS and that would be enough but that's not all they want.

It's a company notorious for going after the money. It jumped all over Microsoft's balls early last gen because it was dominating the market. Later in that same generation it showed Nintendo some lovin'. It's strategy is to make the biggest bang with their buck. PS4 is dominating this generation so it's going to throw everything Sony's way.

Not really when you consider the fact that their two biggest upcoming titles, FFXV and KHIII, are both coming to the X1 as well.  Back during the PS1 and 2 days, SE were essentially 2nd party developers for Sony as nearly all of their major titles were exlusive to PlayStation platforms, and only a handful of spinoffs found their way onto other platforms like FF Crystal Chronicles or the portable KH games and FF remakes.

I never said anything about consoles having more exposition cause of graphics, they have more exposition cause they do, theyve been around longer and the games are much bigger projects and much more complex, it get way more publicity, general public catches wind of console games much easier. Sony doesnt have that much money to go around moneyhatting, this deal with Square go as far as ensuring lots of publicity most likely, just like Nints deal is/was. CD Projeks move to multiplat was to atract investors due to increased exposition (Marcin Mormom said so himself, hes one of the owners of the company), it was a risky move they had no experience developping to multiple plataforms at the same time and it risked alienating theyre PC userbase wich usualy dont take well to graphical consessions in order to acomodate console specs on theyre games. It payed off big time however.

Yokai watch has 0 popularity outside Japan, beeing on stage on an E3 press conference and anouncing youre developping DQ XI for PS4 holds a lot of weight. it might even be multiplat and come to WiiU, PS4 and XOne we dont know that yet, but its undeniable that if you want to grow a brand and your company you need publicity and home consoles get a lot more of that than handhelds. And were focusing way too much on one game, the other games in the deal follow the same principle, stregthening the company brand as a whole harnessing the Ps4s publicity and conquering the Japanese home console market while at it, maybe even reigniting Japans interest for home consoles to some extent, cause theyve been favoring handhelds and mobile there for some time now.