Microsoft turned down opportunity to publish Heavy Rain, says Cage
PS3 thriller Heavy Rain could've been on Xbox 360, but long talks between Microsoft and developer Quantic Dream ended in disagreement and the French studio eventually turning to Sony, according to Quantic CEO David Cage. Speaking at a BAFTA UK event that Joystiq attended, Cage told the audience Microsoft had issues with the game's content, specifically child kidnapping. The 2010 game is based heavily around a father searching for his kidnapped son, taken away by a serial killer.
When asked what he'd say to publishers who turned him down, Cage said Microsoft was the last to do so: "We were pitching Heavy Rain to different publishers, including Sony, and we went to Microsoft. We had a very long talk and they really loved Fahrenheit [known as Indigo Prophecy in North America], and they really wanted to do something with us. And they got scared by the fact Heavy Rain was about kids being kidnapped, and this is why they said, 'This is an issue, we want to change it."
"Well, we could have kidnapped cats, That's a different experience!" Cage joked.
Cage was keen to stress Microsoft is a "great company" and that he wasn't complaining or trying to be critical of the publisher: "I'm just saying I think there was some resistance at the time that was not in sync with what we wanted to achieve."
However, Cage said he felt the disagreement meant the companies couldn't work together on the project, that Microsoft didn't understand what he was trying to achieve with Heavy Rain. Cage, who is busy touring the globe to promote the upcoming launch of PS3 game Beyond: Two Souls, said Microsoft was "scared of the scandal and scared of what people may write and what people may think." In Cage's mind, Sony better understood the game's context within an "emotional experience."
Quantic Dream remains independent, but Beyond: Two Souls will follow Heavy Rain as a PS3 exclusive, while the studio showed a 12-minute PS4 tech demo at E3 this year.
