Harrison On LBP Recall: "Absolutely The Right Thing To Do"

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Everyone seems to have an opinion about the LittleBigPlanet; recall - you may recall one Muslim group's reply - and now, former Sony President of Worldwide Studios, Phil Harrison, has decided to speak up on the issue. This one, not surprisingly, comes from a business-oriented mind.

Harrison, now the president of Atari, told GamesIndustry.biz that he thinks Sony's decision to recall LBP was "absolutely the right decision." He adds that this delay won't have any sort of negative impact on the game's ultimate success, which he considers to be a pretty amazing accomplishment:

"I downloaded the beta, I sat down to play it, and it's pretty rare that within five seconds of starting a game you fall in love with a bit of software. And it was just the most fantastic experience, the whole intro sequence, where you've got the narration and the video of the dreams coming off the people in real life, going up to form the planet - I just thought that was absolutely inspired. ...so I think people are going to be blown away by the game, and while I'm obviously sad for the stumble, I don't think it will affect the long term success of the game one iota."

But during his keynote address at the Unite 08 event in Copenhagen, Harrison said Sony needed to pull the highly anticipated title, as it "was fundamental to the core mission of the game." Remember, Media Molecule and Sony have been presenting this particular title as one that the entire world should enjoy; it's geared towards everyone, so everyone should feel comfortable playing it. Said Harrison:

"I wasn't privy to all of the discussions and debate that went on within Sony, but I know they would have thought very deeply about it, and at the highest level of the company. And on reflection I think it was absolutely the right thing to do, because LittleBigPlanet set out from day one to be a game for the entire world - and if there was anything that accidentally detracted from that vision and made the game not fun for the entire world, then the game would have fundamentally failed in its mission.

So I think Sony took absolutely the right decision - painful though it was, and frustrating though it might be for gamers who were looking forward to it. It only seems to have heightened the anticipation, so I think it'll end up being a win, and full credit to Media Molecule for turning around a fix as quickly as they did."

There are always two sides to every story, and several different ways of looking at things. From a business and promotion standpoint, perhaps Sony had no other alternative. From the average non-Muslim gamer standpoint, it's disappointing, but with so many opinions out there...well, we should try to listen to as many as possible to get a gander at the bigger picture.

Related Game(s): LittleBigPlanet

10/22/2008 Ben Dutka

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