One of the most anticipated titles coming out this Holiday season was LittleBigPlanet 2 from Media Molecule; however, that all changed when the title was officially delayed until January 2011. This decision caused a massive amount of disappointment not only with gamers eagerly awaiting to get their hands on the game, but for SCEE and MM as well.
Alex Evans of Media Molecule recently let it be known that the delay occurred because not all PlayStation 3s are connected to the internet in order to receive future patches. While LittleBigPlanet 2 could be released on time and would still be an enjoyable experience, the team at Media Molecule wanted to make sure that the Blu-ray edition was perfect with a level of entertainment that is “super amazing.”
“Like LittleBigPlanet, we will be supporting the game with patches, updates and whatever, but you have to realise right from the beginning that there are those people who don’t have online and that is why we decided it was the right decision to delay the game,” Evans said, speaking to Anderson at EG Expo last weekend.
The developer added: “In the end, the main reason for it though was just that we played the game and in the end realised that we had to make the Blu-ray perfect, and I don’t mean 100 percent perfect, but I just mean something we are proud of.
“We respect people don’t have online and don’t want to patch their game to get the full experience. We could have shipped it and it would have been fine, however we realised that with just a couple of extra week’s we could make the game super amazing, adding the super onto the already amazing which exists today. This is something that will live forever and the delay, people will forget about.
“I’m really sorry the delay frustrated people, even us, I mean I really wanted to get this game out for Christmas so hard. We pushed ourselves but realised with just a few more weeks we could make it perfect.”
It’s great to see a developer take so much pride in its work like MM has for LittleBigPlanet. They’re aware that the launch of the sequel is a pretty big release in the industry and the desire to make it as close to perfect as possible is something worth applauding. With the new found love of patches from a lot of developers, it seems like many are willing to release games into the wild that aren’t quite ready but can be improved over time through the ability to patch, so this change of pace is a fresh welcoming.
🙂