Saints Row canceled due to lack of Sony support, Cell 'complicated'

With Saints Row 2 arriving on the PS3 soon, some of us are left wondering why a port of the original Saints Row was eventually canned without a detailed explanation. Producer Dan Sutton of Volition tells CVG a valiant attempt was made, since they were about 50% done when they concluded that "we just couldn't get our heads around Cell ... it's just really complicated." Eventually, they decided when the port of Saints Row was finished it would simply be too late to release.

Well, what's so complicated about it? "Cell's really, really powerful. The problem is it's also a really different system, the way it uses multi-threading technology." came the reply. They also attribute the lack of Sony support in fixing bugs to the cancellation: "PlayStation-only bugs are so complicated and Sony didn't have the support to help us out during the Saints Row 1 development."

But it appears things have changed for better this time around for Saints Row 2, as Volition hired a specialized PS3 team to deal with the hardware. And Sony is helping this time around, too. "I think now the support's there at least - we've had many conversations with Sony trying to get our heads around that ... but now we have that support and it's really exciting." Sounds good to us -- let's hope Sony continues to provide that level of assistance to every third-party developer.