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DICE 2015: Oddworld's Move to Xbox a 'Matter of Survival'

Truth is still less strange than Oddworld

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By Seth Tipps
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Lorne Lanning, creator of the Oddworld series, says the decision to move Oddworld from PlayStation to Xbox was a matter of survival.In a panel discussion at the DICE Summit in Las Vegas called “A Conversation with Shu Yoshida”, Lanning discussed a few reasons behind the move -- a potentially touchy subject considering the presence of the president of Sony Worldwide Studios.
Lanning said it became unpredictable to plan and develop a game on the PlayStation 2 from a budgetary standpoint. And he said the cost of acquiring dev kits became prohibitive. When the original Xbox was announced as a machine built for developers, it made development costs more predictable. "We were trying to survive,” he said. “It was a way to actually land and survive."

Digital distribution on PlayStation 3 opened the door for some of the PS1 Oddworld titles to return to Sony's platform after the studio closed its doors in 2005. It also allowed for the releases of Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee HD and Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath HD, games that were originally Xbox exclusives before their HD remakes.

Last year's Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty was the first time an Oddworld game launched on the PlayStation platform (PS4) since the series moved to the original Xbox in 2001.

Lanning said the return to PlayStation was thanks in part to a surprising call he received from Sony. “You guys want to be on PS4? We’ll send you a dev kit," Lanning recalled. He says PlayStation 4 now has an environment that is friendly to developers and the indie community.

IGN was pretty enthusiastic about the remastered version of the game, Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty, calling it a fantastic way to rediscover the classic puzzle-platformer.
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