Yoshida: PS3 asked too many compromises of The Last Guardian

The arrival of PS4 is one of the main reasons why development of The Last Guardian has taken so long to develop.

Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida told Kotaku that the team working on the game was struggling to realise its vision on PS3. In fact, he even admitted that the trailer used to introduce the game way back at E3 2009 was ahead of what the console could actually produce.

“In 2011 the progress became super slow. There were lots of technical issues. The game was not performing at speed,” he said. “The video we showed, the trailer on PS3, was specced up. The game was running at a much lower frame rate. Some features were still missing.

“So it was clear that the team had to make a compromise in terms of features and number of characters so while they were taking time, the engineering team ported the code on the SPU [processors of the PS3] to improve the performance, but it was taking lots of time.

“But, in the meantime PS4 arrived, the development environment was available. So in 2012 it became apparent we should move it to PS4 to achieve the visual [ideal.]”

Yoshida added that the game is playable right now, but that Sony opted against a live E3 demo in case the animal AI decided it didn’t want to perform for an audience.

So when exactly will we see The Last Guardian in 2016? “We have a certain level of confidence about the launch window, which is why we showed it,” the exec added.

So there you have it. PS4 was pretty much the reason for it's delay as I'm sure many speculated. Essentially why Ico didn't come out on the PS1 then. Just that we now have confirmation. At least this tells us that the game just might get better and more epic later on, but not much has been shown at all so far, probably no more than a tutorial area.

So they were trolling everybody since 2012... nice :).

Looking forward to it.

So were they lying then or now? It has to be one or the other. lol

Rendering that beast, its AI, all its feathers, the dynamic destruction, I said it a long time ago, it was probably way too taxing on the PS3. I just thought it would re-revealed earlier.

I think so. They essentially said "were doing this to a standard, not a deadline". Good on them.

So much for the power of the PS3. I call bullshit excuses here though.

There have been some truly ambitious games out on the PS3 and from what I've seen (which admittedly isn't much) this game didn't look all that demanding graphically or in terms of AI. Hey, I'm probably wrong (No stranger to that) but it seems more like the problem here is on the human side, probably bad management of resources. You'd be surprised how bad management can really screw up a project filled with talented people.

Even then the game didn't look all that great on PS4.

Sony lying? What? No...

What duel 1080P at 120fps wasn't good enough, geeez cry mooaar. :P

So you think they delayed it for years because they were thought it would be funny? It's pretty rational to think what they say is true. Trico (the creature) already looked like too much for the PS3 to realisticly simulate properly. And it's obvious that the game world is a huge open space like previous games.

They thought of an idea on PS3, found that what they really wanted, the PS3 could't feasibly do, so they waited and done it on PS4. Hence the delay. I just want to see some more of the game beyond that end cutscene. There's a staircase, I want to see what's in there!

Wow. Kind of shady. Game looks mediocre anyways. So much hype for a game that looks rather meh.

No. I think they lost control of the scope of the game.

Once it was announced they probably tried to throw in the kitchen sink in regards to what the game was going to be and it bit them in the ass. It's a classic example of how someone who doesn't manage a project properly will lose control of it and never be able to complete it properly- Usually the solution to that is to bring in a cleaner to get shit finished hell or high water. I read somewhere that Mark Cerny is coming in to help out (rumour-take with grain of salt).

I don't think that when they showed it, there was a real game there (classic E3 reveal) and they struggled to define what it was going to be.

Don't believe PR bullsh*t.

For truth.

It's just too bad they couldn't have been honest last gen when they announced the game for the PS3.

I honestly think the game was canned at some point but Sony brought it back to avoid the fan backlash. I mean look at what they did during their press conference. They announced the Final Fantasy 7 remake, Shenmue 3 and The Last Guardian. It's like the Sony brass has been hanging out on NeoGaf and Reddit trying to figure out what they should do next. Lets just hope that Sony fans actually buy this stuff.

I think Final Fantasy 7 will sell about as well as Final Fantasy 13, which is pretty good. I doubt Shenmue and TLG sell all that well.

The bolded, I disagree with. But I think that applies to DriveClub. They didn't really know the niche of racer they were after, hence the missing features and bare bones crap, and the year delay and still being bare bones. In TLG's case, Ueda had the creative work already figured out in an interview not long after the 2009 reveal. They obviously hadn't built the full game yet and I'm not sure they even attempted to on the PS3 (which might have been your point, sorry if so). So they waited out for the PS4 dev kits and got to work there. But I think the vision for the game itself was there from the very beginning. I think the game will have a lot of scale and interesting puzzle solving. Maybe combat later on? Who knows? Probably going to be more like Ico than SoTC I think.

Watching the Gamersyde video of this new gameplay though shows you that it's far from being a PS3 title. The superficial artstyle is the same, but the detail is much greater than the 2009 trailer (which wasn't even rendered on a PS3 as confirmed by Yoshida).

Interesting theory, only that they said since 2010 that they are still working on it. Every few months. You know, where everyone kept screaming "lolvapourware" or "it's dead guys!"? It's not really something Ueda would do. What you said was totally fabricated.

Well how old are most of the assets, etc? I'd assume that some stuff was improved, but then that'd be the whole reason for the lengthy delay. Quite frankly it is nice to see a game in such a state make it to an actual release date(as they say). The situation reminds me of Earthbound 64. Aspects of that game looked so great. A troubled production and developers not thinking it met a quality standard in areas...it was then canned and completely redone for gba, unfortunately(the game is still great--Mother 3 that is). Still, Earthbound 64 moved to Gamecube would have been a blessing.

Sounds like BS if you ask me. Plus I didn't see anything pushing the bar in the latest trailer. So what were they doing with the game all this time?

Whatever. As long as it comes out and the game doesn't suffer from this long development.

So its the PS3 game ported to PS4? I mean graphically it looks like a PS3 game so I shouldn't be shocked. I just thought it would be better than that.

Just because a few studios were able to dig a little deeper for PS3 doesn't mean Team Ico studio would be able to. Hell,, I think at the end of the day GTA V ended up being the most technically impressive game on the console. Not even a 1st party game.

Obviously not being able to match technical abilities wth a product is a failure in itself. There is no excuse for a team to just "struggle" with a game for a period of years and product nothing in that span. By definition that is a leadership failure.

That's exactly my point.

Makes PERFECT sense. We're just glad its finally coming out.

Where is the PR Bullshit Brigade????

Oh wait its a Soony topic.

Sony Fan continue to be the clowns of SW.

Also let the damage control begin when this game is terrible and will be blamed on having to be ported from another platform.

It's very common speculation among the gaming community. Let's recap some of the development woes of The Last Guardian.

-Development of the game started as early as 2007
-The public was made aware of the game in 2008
-The game was shown at E3 and TGS 2009
-The game was a no show at E3 2010
-At TGS 2010 it was revealed that the game would have an expected release in 2011
-Ueda considered including a demo in the Ico and Shadow of the Colossus Collection. It didn't happen
-December 2011 Ueda leaves Sony but says he will finish the game
-2012 at Gamescom claims were made that the game was in a playable state but technical issues arose
-The trademark expired the 1st time in 2012 because 3 years had passed since filing without a product being produced
-E3 2013 Jack Trenton says the game is on hiatus
-2014 IGN claims the game is cancelled based on "Insider Information"
-2015 Sony fails to renew the trademark based on an "administrative oversight"

So you are saying they revived it for hype reasons and quality be damned? I don't think Ueda would be very happy with that at all. It's more likely that they were dancing around questions pre 2013 since development moved to PS4. Ueda left Sony to make his own studio. That studio was 'gen design', and it's logo appears on TLG. His creative work finished early on. He had it all planned. The issue was the PS3 not being able to synthasize his vision.

Naughty Dog did fine with the PS3.

So they admit that they were lying about it running on PS3 and most importantly, the power of cell processor that can launch nukes and space shuttles?

Yes. They were lying. They couldn't just say in 2011 or so that they were moving development to the PS4. I mean, if you want to go into technicalities and nit pick, you can tear them apart because they lied. But when you think about their situation, what would you say? Pretend the game is canceled?

It's a shame for people who were looking forward to it on PS3 and won't get the chance unless they already own a PS4.

LOL. The dynamic destruction is just sig worthy.

Well at least it is coming out now. I wasn't impressed with the demo so I hope that there is more to it. After so many years of wait it better live up to expectations of fans. A lot of people are hyped about it because of SOTC and that game was epic. They better deliver.

I can believe that. The project got too ambitious for the PS3 to handle so they had to wait for new hardware. Feature creep or scope creep is a very common source of a software project's failings. This is why game devs usually have more business minded folks making the higher up decisions. If artists and creative types get their way too much, games get to big in scope for them to be technically achievable within any sort of a realistic timeframe.

TLG is not going to be a very profitable game for them. At this point they just want TLG to be on the platform as a way to bolster the PS4's library. Maybe they didn't want to lose the dev and have a good relationship with the developer they didn't want to break.

Still looks like a PS3 game though....weird

And now they are lying about the power of 900pStation. Nothing's changed. The usual PR stuff. No wonder we didn't see anything on 900pStation outdoing the standards set by 2011 PC games.

Yeah I want to see what's in that cave at the end of the level. I think they went for a Dark Souls style design where everything leads into one another. Obviously the game gets more elaborate gameplay wise lol. If the previous Team Ico games are anything to go by.

Team Ico did the same thing with Ico for the PS1.

As you can probably see, there was no way their vision for Ico was going to be done on the PS1 so they waited for the PS2. They did the same for The Last Guardian. It's just that this gen demands bigger games and take more time to make, and Team Ico have much in common with From Software when it comes to technical stuff (they aren't good at it).

@Blabadon: are you stil hyped?

I mean the vision can finally be realised now because it's on ps4 so all the rumors about it going to be a bad game and taking so long to release turned out to be a ICO ps1 similar situation .them trying to figure out how to do it on PS3 but couldn't but now they can on ps4 it seems Ueda vision can finally be realised and he has his own studio now too so we can expect greatness even after last guardian.

Will it surpass ICO and shadow? Remains to be seen but it does look wonderful. E3 this year is like a dream coming true. Megaton after another.

Because it shared a lot of features and depicted a similar scene as the 2011 presentation for the press:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-06-17-the-last-guardian-emerges-from-hibernation-unchanged

Point retains. They were lying and they are still lying about the power. Oh and what would you call this game now, Scott, current gen or last gen?

No, they were lying about the game coming to PS3. Team Ico wanted a large scale and more ambitious game so they opted for the PS4. It's plain and simple. And cut the alt crap out.

you are assuming that was actually PS4 footage.

im sure that was some 2009 PS3 footage

Well I would say it's a mixture of things.

-Team Ico's programmers are good, not that good. Shadow of the Colossus always had some framerate issues, and they always did push their tech in some interesting ways
-Actually detailing that beast, having it connected to the player, giving those feathers the look they have, and all that jazz isn't some dime a dozen we created an escort that follows you.
-Mechanical stuff could have been an issue for instance when he's holding on to that thing, I would imagine it's more like SoTC where it's not just press a button and you're locked on, you need to actually hold and fiddle with the pad to hang on and stuff.

So there are probably technical things that the studio wanted to do that they can't given their resources, studio tends to punch above their own weight. It's a different beast from saying well Rockstar did this, because the difference is

A: Rockstar has money for days
B: Rockstar is fucking huge
C: Rockstar totally made a deal with Satan to make GTA 5 work the way it does on Xbox 360/PS3. That's not talented programming, that's black magic.

inb4 2016 comes and The Last Guardian still isn't released. Showing The Last Guardian at every E3 since 2009 then never delivering must be an ongoing inside joke at Sony.

Except they've only showed it once until this year. If you're going to troll, at least get your information right.

They needed a reason to keep selling PS3's.

It's not the first game to be stuck in development hell. While I would like to get a chance to play it like anyone else, it's one of those things where "it's done when it's done." Clearly Japan Studio got over-ambitious (are all the physically dynamic feathers really necessary?), because honestly this kind of game doesn't require PS4, or even PS3-level CPU and GPU power to be decent looking and well playing, unless dynamic environmental physics are extremely crucial to the gameplay itself.

The fact they showed anything at all is promising, but I would've like to have seen a disclaimer saying the footage was captured directly off of a PS4 in realtime.