Going by early reviews, namely EGM's, the game is looking to be a massive disappointment so is it just one of the countless number of titles out there that didn't live up to the hype or is there more to it? Lair was obviously a very ambitious project which likely required a similiarly ambitious budget so I'm wondering whether Factor 5 just didn't think pouring the required resources into it to fix the reported flaws and problems was worth it considering PS3s continued sluggish sales.

Here is a quote from Julian Eggebrecht, the President of Factor 5 speaking to IGN on February the 8th back when the PS3 was relatively new to the scene.

IGN: "Where do you see PlayStation 3, Wii and Xbox 360 in three years?"

Julian: "It's all about the long term view. The one thing that I'm a little bit worried about with Nintendo is that a similar situation as the GameCube might happen. I do think they have a much stronger launch this time around, no doubt about it. But still, Nintendo always had a challenge keeping third party content on their platform and keeping third parties happy. Or, if the third party stuff doesn't happen in large enough amounts, then supplying enough first party content. If they get that right, I think the Wii can sustain quite a bit. With PlayStation 3, I don't have any doubt that in three years it will be the most sold system. On the other hand, though, I don't think it will dominate the market quite as clearly as PS2 did. I don't think there is any doubt about that anymore -- that Microsoft has quite a bit of traction and won't suddenly out of the blue lose that traction. This round of consoles will be a much more even thing, with Sony clearly in the lead in three years. The wild-card is really Nintendo's casual gamer thing. If Nintendo really manages to have a huge breakout thing and suddenly every second housewife is buying a Wii, then we're looking at a completely different scenario. But I don't know if that's going to happen."

As you can see he seems 100% sure that their chosen platform was a dead cert to win the race. Nearly 6 months later and I suspect that Julian's prediction of the conole war has probably changed somewhat. I'm sure, considering he thought that the PS3 would be leading the pack after 3 years that he'd have expected a much bigger userbase to greet his game than has turned out to be the case.

The situation is made even more curious by the fact that Factor5 knows how to make good console flyers. The 64 and GC Star Wars games were met with overall positive critical feedback, Rogue Squadron 1 receiving 85, RS2 90, & RS3 75 on Metacritic, the latter being accused of being rushed out of the gate, possibly similiar to Lair?

So in summary we have a highly anticipated game made by a respected developer which was completely confident in the platform's success when embarking on the project, receiving poor early reviews. Is this just a case of a poorly executed game or the beginning of a trend in which devs release unfinished, buggy games on PS3 in an attempt to cut their losses and concentrate on more profitable platforms? I suppose waiting to see which platform Factor 5 decides to put their next project on could be a clue.

I think that it would be a mistake to equate an overhyped product with one that is necessarily a dud.

You should probably try asking this question when the game is actually released.

well that's obvious

This is a little premature here, wait a couple weeks for some *real* reviews to come out before you pronounce the game a failure.

And EGM's reviews are'nt real enough? Please don't kid yourself.

It's obvious a talented devhouse like Factor 5 just lost faith in the project. Thus wanted it out of the way, so they could consentrate their resources on something more potentially surfire, like another Star Wars game, perhaps?

EA can afford to bet on the wrong horse, Factor 5 can't and thats just a fact of life.

 It's not that their reviews aren't real, it's just that so far the only two reviews are from Play (9/10--the people that also gave Sonic the Hedgehog for the PS3 a 9/10) and EGM.  Wait for more reviews so you can get an average from Gamerankings and wait until actual people play the game before you pronounce it a failure.

wow Julians pretty smart about the analysis, and no i dont think they tried to cut their losses when theyre almost finished, it would hurt their rep, plus polishing doesnt cost that much compared to making the game from scratch, cutting their losses intentionally like that would just kill sales..

They focused too much on making the best graphics,and not enough on gameplay

Guys isn't Factor 5 now a SONY First Party company, I thought they were brought out by SONY, I maybe wrong of course.

As for the EGM Lair review, are we sure that it is true & not a over inflated rumor as the issue isn't even out yet and some random post on neogaf forums has said this.