What if God of War II would have launched with the PS3? Don’t be surprised if your head begins aching from the possibilities. We recently chatted with Shuhei Yoshida, Sony Computer Entertainment’s senior vice president of product development, about the decision to go ahead and release Kratos’s second god-murdering adventure on the PS2 late in the console’s life.

When asked whether he thought God of War II should have been delayed in order to be a PS3 launch game, Yoshida said “We had a lot of debates about it, actually. I always firmly stood by keeping it on PS2. Many people, including marketing, suggested that maybe it should be moved to PS3. What I believed was that God of War II would be the best-selling and best game of the year. We had always seen that, at the launch of a platform, the developer has to spend a lot of time becoming familiar with the platform and software tools. Technical issues take up a lot of the development, perhaps leaving less time for really polishing the game. Towards the end of a platform is when you see really great games, after developers really begin to understand the hardware.

“In the God of War franchise,” he continued, “I saw an opportunity for the Santa Monica team to complete their vision for the second game on a platform they totally understood. That was my argument and the company and team supported it. I’m very happy with the result. So to your question, I have never regretted the fact that we released God of War II on PS2.”

Be sure to read our full interview with Yoshida in the March issue of Game Informer, available next month.

It would have had better graphics, duh

edit: ah it woudlve been a launch title in this case? NVM

They made an excellent decision! I would have done the same, considering God of War 2 on the PS2 was the best looking game and gained Critical Praise and Awards. If it were a launch title for the PS3, I doubt that would have happened.

Imagine the coin the made out of it! A mature console + great game late in cycle = PROFIT!