Why Joe Danger: Special Edition tweaks are 360-exclusive

Hello Games: PSN patch would be "impractical".

Patching the various changes made to forthcoming Xbox Live Arcade release Joe Danger: Special Edition into the PlayStation Network original would be "impractical", according to developer Hello Games.

During a guest appearance on this week's Eurogamer podcast, studio boss Sean Murray explained that it just wouldn't make sense to bring the new content across to PSN as it radically alters how the game plays.

"The changes we've made - and I think people will understand when they've played the Special Edition - change the game in ways that I think would be really weird for us to bring over to PSN," he said.

"We've removed levels we just didn't like," he offered as an example. "It might be someone's favourite level, and it would just disappear.

"We've made certain things easier and certain things harder. We've changed the way certain things unlock. So someone would be half way through and just go, 'Oh, I thought I had that level unlocked and now it's locked again.' It's impractical to do that. We can't do that.

"Most people when they port a game they just do that - it's literally exactly the same. That went against... I wouldn't do that. It would be very boring. We took it on as a creative, fun thing to do."

Elsewhere, Murray explained that observing PS3 player usage stats, which indicated which parts of the game were causing people to put the controller down, encouraged them to make the changes for the 360 version.

"In a lot of cases, we knew," he said.

"But you think maybe it's okay. We had kind of run out of time and money and were like 'we have to release this game', which is a terrible thing to admit to. You do get to that stage when you have to get it out there.

"That is what has been nice - that we had unfinished business and we get to come back for a Special Edition and change quite a lot of things and make things right.

"I guess people are going to get angry and say 'why don't we have those changes in our version'," he continued, "but I think it's the right thing to do, to fix those problems."

Murray added that although the XBLA announcement has upset a few PlayStation 3 patrons, most of the feedback it's had from fans has been encouraging.

"I've got a lot of emails from people who are really supportive and I think genuinely most people are. For a small indie studio to be bringing out their game on another platform isn't a big deal for them," he said.

"I think the biggest thing we've had is on Eurogamer itself where we stayed on the front page for days and days. I referred to PlayStation users as 'playtesters' of the game, which was a terrible, stupid thing to do."

For more on the Xbox Live Arcade release, and the studio's plans for recently-announced sequel Joe Danger: The Movie, give the podcast a listen in full.


Jump to comments (28)

About the author

Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton




You may also enjoy...

Comments (28)


Hide low-scoring comments

Buy things with globes on them

And other lovely Eurogamer merch in our official store!

Eurogamer Merch