Guillaume de Fondaumiere of developer Quantic Dream has said the reason for Heavy Rain’s delay from this year to the next was down to a matter of space, it ”needs space”.
Releasing such ”an innovative game” that’s also a new property at the crowded end of the year is unwise. Gamers ”can’t afford” to buy all the winter slated games. It’s success is important.
”The first and most important reason was the fact that I don’t think that such an innovative game like Heavy Rain and a new franchise should be released at the end of the year in the crowded period when everyone’s releasing there games,” de Fondaumiere told CVG.
”A game like Heavy Rain needs space, needs to be explained and shown. At the end of the year, people can’t afford to buy all those games so we wanted to give Heavy Rain the chance to have its own release window, and for us to really talk about it so people really understand it.”
More crucially, Heavy Rain is an indication of whether the industry at large can gamble on new innovative games like Quantic Dream has, argues the studio co-CEO.
”If Heavy Rain doesn’t succeed it’s going to have important implications for other developers and for ourselves - maybe people will think ‘those innovative games don’t work, games cannot really convey realistic emotions.’ And they will continue to do the standard shooters and the like that we have been doing for however many years,” he added.
Heavy Rain is being released exclusively on PS3 in early 2010. Check out the gameplay footage below from GamesCom, courtesy of IGN snoopers at the scene.
