April Fools has always been a tricky subject when it comes to the games industry. Some publishers like to use it to test the waters with a tasty treat whereas others just announce something stupid that people want without it actually being feasible in the long run.
Sometimes, however, it's used to tease something that's much closer to reality. A red herring, if you will. A test of character for both the company and its fans. PlatinumGames and Sega did just that with Bayonetta - and it worked out for the better.
Using the day of jokes to throw 8-bit Bayonetta onto Steam only drummed up interest in fans wanting to see one of PlatinumGames most daring characters show up with her first real outing. 10 days later, she did. Bayonetta 1 was released onto Steam for £15 being a well-managed 4K port of the more stable WiiU re-release. Not that horrific PlayStation 3 attempt.
Following the release, PC Gamer spoke to those in-charge of making the switcharoo possible in the first place saying with a PlatinumGames spokesperson saying; "We’ve always had a positive stance towards porting our titles to PC, but the decisions as to which platforms we release our games on, and which platforms are the main focus for the games we make are largely made by the publishers, so this is not something we can decide on our own.
Carrying on to say "... if it were up to us, we’d port all of our games to PC..." Though, sadly, it's still up to whichever publisher is holding a specific game ransom. Hopefully the success of Bayonetta on Steam will entice others into paying closer attention to a platform that is most certainly not as 'dead' as it was deemed in the last generation.
