The Witness likely to see console release

Braid developer Number None's puzzle island The Witness may well see a console release after all, creator Jonathan Blow has said. Previously, J-Blow said the time and effort that'd go into making it run well on the dated hardware were "not worth it for us

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Braid follow-up The Witness may well see a console release after all, creator Jonathan Blow has said. Previously, Blow had said the time and effort that would go into making it run well on the dated Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 were "not worth it for us."

In a huge departure from Braid, The Witness is a 3D "exploration-puzzle" game set on a enigmatic deserted Island. Why ever it's there, and whoever was there before, the island is crammed full of over 200 puzzles to find and solve.

"My current idea is to launch on PC and iOS, and then maybe one of the consoles which has not been decided, and later to bring the game to all other platforms," Blow has now told Game Informer. He explained:

We can only do a certain number of platforms at launch, because we're small. A few months ago, I was doing all these interviews, and I didn't think we were going to do a console at launch. But we're hiring two more programmers, which has a huge impact on what we can do. So now the idea is open again, that we might do a console launch, but now what exactly that is depends on all sorts of business things that we just haven't figured out yet."

Only a few months ago, a console version of The Witness was looking unlikely. In an interview published in September, Blow told Edge, "We like 360 and PS3, but their specifications are over five years old now, and that's a lot in computer years. The kind of tricks we'd have to perform to get this game working on those platforms are such a lot of work that to port it over at this point is just not worth it for us."

He added, "Maybe this time next year I'll be singing a different tune because I found out I was wrong, but I don't think so." Please sing that sweet, sweet song for us, J-Blow.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    December 5, 2011 9:30 AM

    Alice O'Connor posted a new article, The Witness likely to see console release.

    Braid developer Number None's puzzle island The Witness may well see a console release after all, creator Jonathan Blow has said. Previously, J-Blow said the time and effort that'd go into making it run well on the dated hardware were "not worth it for us

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      December 5, 2011 10:21 AM

      oh he likes money after all

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      December 5, 2011 10:26 AM

      I'm really looking forward to this game.

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      December 5, 2011 11:05 AM

      Hahaha! I guess he finally figured out cred tokens can't be cashed at his bank.

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        December 5, 2011 11:26 AM

        Yup. CRY SOME MORE, BLOW!

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      December 5, 2011 11:49 AM

      [deleted]

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      December 5, 2011 11:50 AM

      Hookers and blow. sorry, I had to

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      December 5, 2011 12:10 PM

      interesting development after the tussle he had with the xbox live dudes on giantbomb's e3 cast

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        December 5, 2011 4:04 PM

        I missed that one; what happened? The only E3 Bombcast I caught was one where David Jaffe was being a complete douchebag, and so I closed the video feed after 5 minutes, and didn't download the podcast.

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          December 5, 2011 4:33 PM

          [deleted]

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          December 5, 2011 4:56 PM

          Jaffe is a legend, i thought his points about breaking through the bullshit of studio worship was great, and he was funny too.

          Anyway the John Blow thing was him taking the microsoft guys to task about all the restrictions and standards you have to wade through to get a game on XBL and keep it updated. He also pointed at how their conference was so kinect dominated and one of the MS guys got heated and put out this line about how in X years people will look back at how much kinect changed everything and blah blah. it was great

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      December 5, 2011 4:28 PM

      "Please sing that sweet sweet song for us?"

      That was an uncomfortably stupid and not at all funny article ending statement.

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      December 5, 2011 11:54 PM

      Exactly! Out dated console! When the hell are we getting new consoles???? I'm forced to game on my PC cause the graphics on my ps3 and Xbox SUCK D***!

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