How Infamous: Second Son influenced the PlayStation 4

Infamous: Second Son producer Brian Fleming talks about how Sony approached Sucker Punch, when it was an independent third-party, to give feedback on everything from the PlayStation 4 hardware specs to its controller.

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As one of the earliest games announced for the system, Infamous: Second Son is going to be an early showpiece for the PlayStation 4's capabilities. But according to the team at Sucker Punch, that's a two-way street. Not only did the PlayStation 4 shape the game, but Sony's requests for input from its developers influenced the PS4 itself.

Producer Brian Fleming says told Game Informer that while the studio was still independent, before being picked up by Sony in 2011, it began work on Second Son. At the time the PS4 was still a nebulous concept, and Sucker Punch laid out its plans for the sequel to help Sony understand what a developer might need from the hardware.

"Mark Cerny's been a part of Sony for longer than us, but our deepest involvement with Mark was giving him our feedback on what became the PlayStation 4," Fleming said. "So he visited us a couple of times, we exchanged a number of documents. We provided lots of feedback on how much data we would think our city would be, how big the individual regions of the city would be, how quickly we would need to load them, how much texture we would have in those, why we would stream this in that way. We had some experience there that was useful for that team when they were planning some aspects of the hardware design."

Fleming also says they were "super-involved" with the DualShock 4 controller design, and one of their designers went to Japan to help test the controller and give feedback. "The opportunity to talk with the controller guys about things that we love and want to take advantage of in the new controller was a great fit for us. I think we really felt like that was a place where we could contribute."

He also notes that as much feedback as they gave, they were just one independent third-party. "The amount of meetings and feedback that we were a part of, if you multiply that by the number of studios that I think were contacted -- it was an impressive effort they put forth to solicit our feedback. And I can only imagine the same thing happened lots and lots of places."

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  • reply
    May 14, 2013 3:00 PM

    Steve Watts posted a new article, How Infamous: Second Son influenced the PlayStation 4.

    Infamous: Second Son producer Brian Fleming talks about how Sony approached Sucker Punch, when it was an independent third-party, to give feedback on everything from the PlayStation 4 hardware specs to its controller.

    • reply
      May 14, 2013 5:38 PM

      Sony really does seem to be on the ball this time. It will be an interesting generation to watch.

      I still prefer my PC though :)

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        May 14, 2013 9:23 PM

        Getting your butt kicked by Microsoft for like five years will do that.

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          May 14, 2013 10:09 PM

          Who said they got their butt kicked?

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            May 14, 2013 10:25 PM

            Depends on country. PS3 was ahead in mainland Europe and Japan, Xbox in US and UK, basically. Dunno about Oz, Xbox I guess?

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              May 14, 2013 10:28 PM

              compared to the PS2 v. Xbox? they certainly got whipped. the PS3 is not a failure at all but it's nowhere near the success of the PS2. some of that also has to do with the Wii. but honestly, a lot of it was the xbox stealing gamers away. the dumber bro games? almost all better on xbox. and those sell truckloads.

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                May 14, 2013 10:35 PM

                There seemed to be fewer exclusives this time around too, Sony even lamented letting Demon's Souls slip through it's fingers to become multi-platform.

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                  May 14, 2013 10:38 PM

                  i think fewer exclusives in general, on both platforms. almost every game now comes out for three platforms. it's exceptionally rare (like 3-4 times per year) that a big-name game is exclusive. PS3 has a lot of smaller shit like catherine and persona but in terms of AAA titles? it's all on everything. too much money to leave on the table otherwise.

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                    May 14, 2013 10:47 PM

                    Aye and with the hardware similarities between the next-gen consoles and PC's I guess there's likely to be even fewer.

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                  May 14, 2013 10:45 PM

                  I'm still waking up and it's probably about the same either way. You'll never see Halo on a PS3 and we'll never see Uncharted on a 360. I think I'll just go back to sleep and pretend this post never happened.

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              May 14, 2013 10:56 PM

              It's like 74.5 million vs 75.5 million. and 10% of the 360 sales were people replacing their broken consoles.

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