The consumer electronics giant admits it thought the successor to Dark Souls was going to be a failure and vows never to make the same mistake again.
The video game market can meet the needs of almost every gamer if he went looking for first-person shooters and role playing games. Yet, in terms of being unique and original, very few games can stand out and offer something completely different.
One such title, which, not only brought originality to the action role playing game genre, but to the entire industry as well, was Demon’s Souls. The game was brutally punishing in terms of the difficulty it offered, yet it was equally, if not more, rewarding.
It soon garnered a cult following and when it was released in the west, was met with overwhelming critical acclaim. In fact, it even went on to win GameSpot’s Game of the Year award.
Yet, one will wonder why the game never saw the same type of advertisement and hype other Sony exclusive titles such as Uncharted and Killzone have. Well, that is because Shuhei Yoshida, the head of Sony Worldwide Studios thought the game was, and we quote: “c**p.”
He explained, “There were frame rate issues and the network was not up and running. We underestimated the quality of the game and to be honest, the media in Japan did the same.”
With those excuses out of the way, the Yoshida also explained how his first hands-on experience with the game left him unimpressed, “For my personal experience with Demon’s Souls, when it was close to final I spent close to two hours playing it and after two hours I was still standing at the beginning at the game.”
It seems someone forgot to tell the Sony Worldwide Studios boss that dying over and over again was the whole point of the game. He continued, “I said, ‘This is c**p.” And “’This is an unbelievably bad game.’ So I put it aside.”
However, Demon’s Souls was far from c**p as the overwhelmingly positive response from the public and review sites suggest and Yoshida admits that he will look to ensure that he never makes the same mistake again.
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