A couple weeks ago Shuhei Yoshida told Famitsu that the mysteriously disappeared PS3 title by Team Ico The Last Guardian is still in development, and today he gave more info on what’s up with the game in an interview on GamesIndustry International.

When asked if the game was still being developed in the building where the interview was taking place he confirmed:

Yeah, in this building!

He was also asked what console the game will be released on, but the response was rather obvious:

Ahh… That, I cannot talk about.

The interviewer argued that it wouldn’t make much sense to release the game on PS3 this late in the console’s lifetime, and said that the developers have PS4 DevKits in their offices because he heard them talking about it. Yoshida-san explained:

So, we’re waiting for the right time to re-introduce The Last Guardian in an appropriate way. I can’t… Well, the game is in development, and it’s well staffed, and Ueda-san is here, working – even though he’s not a Sony employee, he’s dedicated to the product. But we’re not ready to update yet.

Finally, Yoshida-san was asked if the “hiatus” the game’s development was allegedly put on is now finally over.

 Hiatus, I never… It was Jack Tretton! He used that term, and I said no, hiatus is misleading. It was a hiatus in terms of releasing new information. The game has never stopped – the team has always been here. They’re going through the re-engineering of the game, so the team size is smaller, because it’s more engineering focused right now.

It's being built! One bit at a day!

It's even worse that it never was on hiatus, that just means that Team Ico work is the slowest ever. If it would be on hiatus it would at least make a bit of sense. Ahh damn. If this game does not release, that will put Yoshida in really bad light, he keeps saying it's still in development, hope he's honest about that

Given how long they teased PS3 owners with it, they better release it for both systems.

At some point they may have realised that PS3 couldn't handle the game, then they probably tried to figure out how to fit the game in the PS3 HW, then they just decided that PS4 is a better choice.

What could possibly be taking so long? It's been 8 years since SOTC, 4 years since the reveal. I'm confident the final product will be masterful, but this long wait is really taking its toll.

The important term here is "re-engineering". That means they're doing it over. Why would you re-engineer something? A) it's not good enough as-is, B) the original interface it was planned for has changed. Sounds like, to me, that they're switching platforms.

The second thing to note is the way Japan Studio works. Team size is not set and the studio isn't divided up by project. Rather, all games start with a small team and then other developers will join in as needed. It's not until a game nears release that the number of people balloons.

I can't wait until the game comes out so that we can hear the whole story.

Funny thing is, there was a video on IGN recently covering TGS and of course TLG was brought up. Colin Moriarty said one of the former IGN editors was on a behind closed doors preview and had seen demo of the game running and working in 2009 TGS :D

I am a very loud supporter of the idea to close Team Ico as soon as possible (if they are really working on TLG immediately after it's released), keep those few most talented who want to actually work and redirect to Sony Japan teams. Cause keeping a group of employees who have not released a game during an entire generation, and a long one, is just ridiculous.

They are recoding everything in the game to PS4... the next trailer/pictures will be jaw dropping.

Why is this game such a big deal? (not intending to troll, an honest question) It doesn't seem that ground breaking judging from the trailer, its a little different from a plethora of popular main stream games today but I don't see the hype.