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Developers Raise Concern Over PSN Restoration
Recent rumors suggest that Sony intends to bring the PlayStation Store back online on May 24, but not everyone is happy about it. Some PSN developers are worried about how Sony's catch-up plans will affect games scheduled to be released.
Developers who spoke with Edge raised a number of potential problems for studios who had games scheduled to release during the outage, as well as games that are supposed to come out in the weeks immediately after the PlayStation Store is brought back online.
First off, Sony's plans to have multiple updates per week could cause titles to be overlooked, especially for smaller games that haven't gotten much press. Secondly, the PSN outage has made it difficult for developers to play test online functionality and other features that require the service, which could lead to further complications.
Another source of worry is the free games Sony is offering customers to make up for the outage, which could also cause players to overlook the launch of new games while they're playing their freebies. Housemarque CEO Ilari Kuittinen revealed that his company had no say in the decision to make its downloadable shooter Dead Nation one of the free titles (it was up to Sony, which published the game), and he's worried that it may negatively impact the sales of its newest game, Outland. "My biggest concern is whether people will come back to use the system and browse the Playstation Store. On top of that, the second issue is that everyone now gets games for free...so people might just play the free games for a while. By the time they are ready to buy something, Outland is maybe old news."
We'll have to wait and see how the relaunch of the PlayStation Store goes, but there appears to be some problems that don't have any easy solutions. Here's hoping that players don't overlook any games well-deserving of their attention, including Housemarque's clever new platformer.
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