The Last Guardian Would Have Been Fine on PS3, Says Creator

Many have wondered whether The Last Guardian could have been released on PS3 without technical holdups and shortcomings. The answer was presumed to be no by many, but creator and director Fumito Ueda says differently. He claims that hardware issues for his games pretty much evaporated with the release of the PS3.

In an interview with Game Informer, it was discussed:

Q: Regarding the original delays on the PS3, were they mainly technical? Can you talk about some of the reasons behind that initial delay?

Ueda: There were multiple reasons. There are always delays in production, as you know. Technical being one of them, but there were many others that were out of my control as well. The good news is that we turned things around – we are in full production now for PS4. The game’s running on the system now, as you saw live, and I think we’re finally in a good spot now. Sorry I didn’t necessarily answer the question.

And that sounds like there may have been some technical issues, which we assume to mean PS3 hardware, but “technical” can mean a lot of things. Ueda clarifies:

Q: If you had been able to put out the game for PS3 as originally planned, would you have been happy with the product? Would the game have been what you wanted it to be?

Ueda: Obviously, this is all imagination at this point. I probably would have been comfortable with the end result – originally, this game was designed for PS3. Assuming that all of the game architecture and all of the game design was suited to deliver the experience I envisioned, given those assumptions I think it would have been a good product.

And just in case that comment was misleading in any way, technical limitations probably only existed up to the PS2 generation. From PS3 and PS4, especially considering the delivery of expression, motion, etc. – from those elements, it’s a matter of how the game is designed, but it’s not technical limitations at that point. The PS3 was not restricting me from doing something.

While he does leave the possibility of later hardware problems cropping up, they actually hadn’t played a role in the delays or the move to PS4. This leads one to wonder if he’s just saying that to sound like he’s not dissing a system that still has a respectable market share, or, if you want to get all cynical, like Sony might have moved the game to help push PS4?

Asked about just that, Ueda was coy:

Q: From the way you’ve been talking, the vision hasn’t changed and technical aspects weren’t a huge hurdle. Was  the decision to prolong development yours or Sony’s?

Ueda: It was pretty much a corporate decision by Sony. And that’s where we’ll leave it. [laughs] Sorry.

Well that’s a thinker.

[Source: GameInformer]