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Prince of Persia post-mortem: lessons learned, skipping the Wii

June 09, 2009 in Interview comments 5

Now that any of the fuss over Prince of Persia has subsided, producer Ben Mattes has sat down for a chat with Industry Gamers about the title, covering what they've learned, why they couldn't bring it to Wii, and more.

Mattes has previously commented on the unique choices made in the game's design, including the difficulty -- consider reading that interview as a precursor to this one, if you're going for maximum geekiness!

BM: Frustration leads very quickly to resentment. ... That was something we were very conscious of with Elika in Prince of Persia, this reality that the second the player resents Elika, even once, because she fell down a hole or didn't get up fast enough when she got knocked out in combat or whatever, they're not going to be in the emotional space we need them to be in for our ending to work. Our game was designed to be some forgivable and accessible that we really expected and ending up seeing a high percentage of people finishing the game; it was really designed for people to experience the ending. We made certain design decisions to eliminate the resentment or potential for resentment with Elika to make sure once the player got to the ending they would be in the emotional space we wanted them to be in.
chautemoc via industrygamers.com »
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  • 2
    Daweii Jun 9, 09
    Nintendo need to find a way of pursuading developers to develop real games for the Wii. This is becoming an ever becoming trend that a developer won't even consider a game for the Wii using it's hardware as an excuse. The Wii has too many family games and with a really low software inception rate with the majority of Wii owners it is obviously turning the big developers away from bringing their big games to the platform.
    • 0
      chautemoc Jun 9, 09
      Ah they deserve some credit I think, they are definitely behind and believe in Chinatown Wars, Madworld, etc. But yeah, the ratio of "mature" games to the rest is absurdly low.

      I dont think the hardware is an an "excuse" though..it is just a fact it's not as powerful. He flat out says they couldn't do what they wanted with it..Matte is a very honest dude, so I believe him.
    • 0
      Akira_EX Jun 9, 09
      By low, you mean "as much as the PS3".

      That said, "real games" are being developed for the Wii, by way of developers like HVS and WayForward, and publishers like XSEED and Atlus localizing titles.
      • 2
        chautemoc Jun 9, 09
        No, the PS3 has more mature games. The DS currently has seven M-rated games out of 1,000+; Wii at 26 out of just under 1,000; PS3 has 102 out of 514.

        Thinking about it a bit more, I wonder if Nintendo wouldn't be content to put out mostly trash every week and rake in millions. Perhaps I'm being pessimistic (fully admitting that as a possibility), but I wouldn't be surprised if their talk about believing in mature titles on their platforms is purely to satisfy and get money from fans. I'm kinda just pissed at them about segregating the "important journalists" from the "rest of us" at E3...bleh. That was a real dick move.

        Anyway, I'm not trying to totally shit on Nintendo -- there's a lot to like about the Wii and DS, to be sure. I'm definitely a lot more fond of 80s/90s Nintendo, though, on the whole.
        • 0
          Akira_EX Jun 9, 09
          When I was commenting on "low", I was referring to Daweii's assertion that there was a 'low' inception rate.

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