Sony Says Heavy Rain is a “Gamble”

In a rather odd marketing maneuver, Sony recently made the statement that the release of Heavy Rain is a “gamble”. I’m pretty sure this would fall under the category of “doing it wrong”, as Heavy Rain has become the shove-it-in-Microsoft’s-face game now that the Uncharted 2 craze has begun to recede.

Sony should be doing nothing but praising Heavy Rain for all the wonderful innovation it’s bringing to the PS3. There should be advertisements plastered on every site saying “Come buy Heavy Rain (and a PS3) and be freed of those Red Rings of Oppression Microsoft has bound you with!”

I’m always excited to see a new IP get some attention from the gaming press. A man gets tired of shooters featuring generic brawny men in gray and brown armor blowing up things in a gray and brown city. You realize someone originally had the idea of making a game about brawny men and gray and brown cities, and at the time that was a great and novel concept. Then the other developers realized that was a great concept as well, and ran it into the ground.

Thus the need for constant innovation in game development arises. The only problem is that a large portion of the consumer face is perfectly satisfied with brawny men and gray cities. The sales of Modern Brawnymen: Generic Warfare Explosions 2 made that apparent to all.

Heavy Rain certainly seems like a step in the right direction of game innovation. I can’t help but wonder that this game is going to turn out to be little more than a Nancy Drew for adults. If it’s just some tagged on quick-time events it’s going to disappoint a large number of PS3 owners who expect pure euphoria in videogame form.

I know Sony is saying Heavy Rain is a gamble to try and project this notion that they are an edgy and unique company, but that’s far from the truth. Sony is a company, a company that likes money.

All the stories and blog posts discussing “What defines a game?” spurred on by Heavy Rain are just the kind of press that’s going to guarantee the game’s sales, and the PS3 fanbase seems eager enough that I wouldn’t actually call it a “gamble”. But is this game going to be the next step in gaming evolution? Probably not, but we’ll have to wait for some actual reviews (Sorry, OPM doesn’t count) to get a sense for how the will be received.

Via: VG247