Well are ArcSys and their team red and blue aaa devs? Soul calibur had a decent connection, Vf and Tekken too (ok maybe BandaiNamco has enough resouces) but the thing is the netcode isn't just dependend on dedicated servers, it has to be developed and coded just like every other aspect of a game.
It has to do with programming and not being greedy or lazy like TN. The best servers won't help you if you are a bad programmer.. And even if they are a sub-studio.. They make enough money from all the dlc and Nioh also looks like an aaa game.
We all like TN in some way but we should not defend or accept everything. If they mess up they should live with the consequences/financial loss and learn from it.
Yes they can ban us for being annoying etc but sooner or later people will start to move on to other projects. Capcom messed it up too with their barebone fighter V and now people are more and more interested in guilty gear for example. These guys raised their voice and did not support them anymore and now capcom is slowly waking up
ArcSystem Works isn't AAA. A triple A company is like the Call of Duty series, The Witcher, Batman Arkham series, GTA etc. Games that amass a ton of players like babies being born each day. If there's anything that's close to that, possibly Street Fighter, but even their latest edition isn't that great when they announced 8-frame delay netplay by them (Ono).
Sometimes it isn't about development costs but whoever they have for such a small team. I am not defending TN for what they do because there are tons of stuff till this day that still annoys me by them, but some of the stuff people request for is just exaggeration levels that even they can't possibly handle. It is still unknown on their intentions unless people directly ask them, but people will fear they'll just talk out their ass into lying about the game's net when perhaps they could be telling the truth? no one knows because none of us have any proof to that matter. I am not against improving the game's net but I am not that crazy for exaggeration levels, especially with current gen as well.
They make money from all that DLC but it's not directly going into just the game's funds itself. KOEI could take that cash and then store it for further use while providing their wage for the Team NINJA employees because it's business and it's a job.
They don't ban you for being annoying. They ignore everyone because they are annoying (at least for the typical general right reasons and not truly everyone, but yeah to some parts of it). People move on because of what they feel which some of it can be understandable. At least it's not the ones that try to move on and come right back to DOA5LR because it's the only game they can play.
As for the bad programmer part, probably not or probably. Can't speak for that because maybe it's true or not. People literally have tried in the past to constantly contact TN about the netcode and they tried to work on it, just not what people expected or unsure on how to properly handle such portions when they know this also varies on people's connections themselves.
