Catching the Rain

I think it puts positive pressure on us - it's exactly where we wanted to be when we started the project. It's extremely important for all the members of the team to know there's a point to what they're doing, that people care. Especially in a game that's emotionally driven, where emotions are at the core of the experience. It's important that the team know what they're doing will be seen, so we're very proud.

We know this positive pressure brings responsibility, especially because I think that the promises we're making with Heavy Rain are quite important for the industry. Also because we're trying to show that it's possible to have an interactive story, that it's possible to offer players something different to just fighting, shooting and driving - that interactivity can be more than that.

So I think there's a strong responsibility, and we're very focused - but it's a positive pressure.

I hope that Heavy Rain will leave an imprint in people's minds, like the best movies or books - that's really our objective. I hope it's going to be not only something that they can look back on from a gaming perspective as new and original, but maybe from a more global perspective as an entertainment form, a form of expression.

This is where we'd like to be - Another World is my all-time favourite game, it's the game that made me decide to work in this industry, and I think that it has been for many a trigger point in realising that games can do more, can bring more, to people.

Yes, absolutely.

We've always known that we had a window to release the game, and it's important for us to finish it the right way. We've got some margin either way, to some degree, but again I think there's a responsibility, and we don't want to deceive - so it's important for the game to be polished up until the last minute.

Also, purely from my perspective, most publishers today realise that it's not ideal to release a new IP or a new genre just before Christmas. It's a very crowded place to be, and certain games need more space to live their life. Everybody at working on the project, both at Quantic and Sony, believe this is the right time.

I think it's a game that will probably have a longer lifespan than other games, simply because - a bit like LittleBigPlanet - we're in our own area. So one shooter could shoot another shooter out of the charts to a certain degree, and that's probably why you're seeing the high number of sales for a short period in other game categories.

For innovative titles that stand out, that are different and almost have no direct competition to a certain degree, then you can see a longer lifespan. That's what makes publishing those titles very interesting - I think LBP has been hugely successful. You may not have seen it in the charts at number one everywhere during one particular week, but when it adds up you see that they've sold, I don't know the exact numbers, but around 2.5 million units worldwide. That's quite an achievement for a first game, definitely.