Sony Comments On The Last Guardian Delays And Vita Sales

With Hayama and Ueda out of the running now, it looks like The Last Guardian’s tricky development cycle is still on shaky ground, with some “scrapping and rebuilding” going on.

Sony have spoken on the game after some silence, with boss Shuhei Yoshida spilling the beans on what sounds like a massively protracted experience.

[drop2]”The project has been making progress, but slow progress,” said Yoshida, “but we haven’t changed any focus.”

“It’s still a really important project and a vision we want to see realised, and Fumito’s vision is really causing a very difficult challenge for the developers, so there’s some scrapping and rebuilding – iteration in the process.”

“That’s why [it’s taking so long].”

“He was an employee, and now he’s working on a contract basis,” said Yoshida of Ueda. “You know, we discussed an arrangement so he could focus on the creative side. He comes in every day, and he’s probably one of the people who works the longest hours.”

“There have been technical issues and the engineering team is reworking it,” he said, concluding. “It’s playable, but not to the level of when we can say it’s coming. ”

Yoshida also talked about Vita, and the Japanese sales.

“It didn’t hit our highest expectations,” he said. “From that standpoint it’s disappointing.  But when you look at the market in Japan today, it’s a very strong portable market as you know, and the PSP is still very strong and lots of new games come out for it.”

“So PSP is still very relevant. And of course 3DS had the perfect storm of top quality games for Christmas with the reduced price.”

“I’m cautiously optimistic,” he said of the upcoming Western launches. “We’ll have to see how the launch goes. In terms of what we have as a foundation as a platform, we’re envisioning this as a seven or eight year platform and are very happy with what we have today and can improve upon it.”

21 Comments

  1. Not good news that it’s barely in playable form after all this time but it’s nice to read some statements matter-of-factly for once rather than a load of beating around the bush.

  2. I’m sure this game will be fine. It is a Sony first party title, after all. You can’t say they’re renowned for keeping a good track on time. Gran Turismo 5 says hi.

    We’ll get it eventually, we just need to be patient.

  3. I fear TLG may already be in development hell. :S I really hope this doesn’t get cancelled or worse, becomes another DNF.

  4. Not everyone likes the same (type of) games but I for one am happy that here on TSA people are not childish fanboy ranting idiots and can still all get along. Personally i love Ico and games like Cod. Variety is the spice of life. Can’t wait for Feb 22nd by the way. Portable life (vita geddit) is going to get a whole lot more interesting. Sell well PSV or else.

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