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God Of War II Was Almost A PS3 Launch Title

January 26, 2010

Kratos Sony's God of War II was one of the last major releases for the Sony PlayStation 2 before the console's successor took over the mantle of top PlayStation, but it almost didn't work out that way. As Game Informer reports, there was serious consideration among Sony's top brass to make Kratos's second adventure a launch title for the PlayStation 3.

When asked whether he thought God of War II should have been delayed in order to be a PS3 launch game, [Shuhei Yoshida, Sony Computer Entertainment’s senior vice president of product development] said “We had a lot of debates about it, actually. I always firmly stood by keeping it on PS2. Many people, including marketing, suggested that maybe it should be moved to PS3. What I believed was that God of War II would be the best-selling and best game of the year. We had always seen that, at the launch of a platform, the developer has to spend a lot of time becoming familiar with the platform and software tools. Technical issues take up a lot of the development, perhaps leaving less time for really polishing the game. Towards the end of a platform is when you see really great games, after developers really begin to understand the hardware.

“In the God of War franchise,” he continued, “I saw an opportunity for the Santa Monica team to complete their vision for the second game on a platform they totally understood. That was my argument and the company and team supported it. I’m very happy with the result. So to your question, I have never regretted the fact that we released God of War II on PS2.”

I believe that making God of War II a PS2 release was the better decision in the long run. Had the game been a PS3 title, then the PS2 would not have benefited from one last blockbuster title and Sony could not have released the God of War Collection two-pack for the PS3 (well, at least not without some grumbling from the peanut gallery). Besides, thanks to the Collection, we still get to enjoy a PS3 version of the game. Everybody won in the end (especially Sony — they were able to sell the game twice).

Posted at 12:30 PM in Sony | Permalink | Comments (2)

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When asked whether he thought God of War II should have been delayed in order to be a PS3 launch game, [Shuhei Yoshida, Sony Computer Entertainment’s senior vice president of product development] said “We had a lot of debates about it, actually. I always firmly stood by keeping it on PS2. Many people, including marketing, suggested that maybe it should be moved to PS3. What I believed was that God of War II would be the best-selling and best game of the year. We had always seen that, at the launch of a platform, the developer has to spend a lot of time becoming familiar with the platform and software tools. Technical issues take up a lot of the development, perhaps leaving less time for really polishing the game. Towards the end of a platform is when you see really great games, after developers really begin to understand the hardware.

“In the God of War franchise,” he continued, “I saw an opportunity for the Santa Monica team to complete their vision for the second game on a platform they totally understood. That was my argument and the company and team supported it. I’m very happy with the result. So to your question, I have never regretted the fact that we released God of War II on PS2.”