I don't think they did happen to afford it when the development was newly started, as it's confirmed that projects for FT2 started "well before" VF3.
Since they already hired partners for FT2 (and maybe VVO2) at that point, it's possible that they couldn't afford another co-developer.
OR
Alternatively, may be they wanted to handle VF3 by themselves, to keep pure LDW soul.
These are only my assumptions and not anywhere near to canonical though.
Edited by Hydra14 (07/08/17 09:28 PM)