Bandai and Namco have existed since ANCESTRAL times, even before consoles existed (seriously, i was amazed to know Bandai is over 100 years old), and i'm almost sure they started in the gaming media since the first Atari was released to the public XD
Remember how heavy the disk for //Redemption was? Imagine if all of //GU was on that disk. It would be too big to play, and they would have had to take out a lot of the content, which would've pissed us all off.
...How "heavy" is Redemption exactly? Seriously, i don't know how much information the game really has, how big it is, and how much data the DVD could still have, if any. However, what i know is that most of the information from all GU exists in Redemption (same with Quarantine)...you can talk to all PCs, access all equipment and items, fight all monsters, go to all areas, read all e-mails, and watch all cutscenes. The only differences are some character models, voices and some skill usage, story areas and story fights, and maybe all that would still be able to fit in the same disk, without really taking any content out of it. Heck, they could even finish all skills properly and create the Custom/Friend Battles for the Arena and place it in the disk with still enough space! (And even if it didn't, i'm still so unhappy at the lack of Arena and Skills awesomeness with all such promised potential x-X)
I think the reason of why the games were divided in 4 and 3 is mostly for the purpose to clearly see how the story develops game by game, and fully relating each game to it's title...i believe it gives more impact and importance to "Outbreak" or "Reminisce" to be treated as a game itself and not just a chapter inside a game. That, and to bother us so we have to wait for like 5 months between each game release to finish playing the story, and maybe so they have more time to work with the games :P
