PS3 Can Handle Splinter Cell Conviction - Ubi

Xbox 360 exclusivity is "purely a business decision", says Lead Designer; "we could absolutely execute on the PS3".

By Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

How about some mild platform controversy to sweeten the onset of another working week? Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction Lead Designer Steven Masters has told Kikizo that his team "could absolutely execute on PS3", and that the game's Xbox 360 console exclusivity is entirely a question of "business".

"Well that's purely a business decision. That's it." Masters observed with a chuckle when the topic came up in a recent interview.

"So it's nothing to do with you being rubbish at PS3 development?" we asked in a round-about sort of way. "It's a boardroom thing?" (Not an unreasonable question: the PS3 version of Assassin's Creed, another Ubisoft Montreal project, looked rather ropey alongside its Xbox 360 cousin.)

"Absolutely, yeah," he said. "Ubisoft as a company now has a lot of experience with PS3. Our processes, tools, techniques are very well-developed - we could absolutely execute on the PS3 if we had the opportunity, but like I said it was a business decision."

Presumably this means Aaron Greenburg popped across the Atlantic and force-fed Yves Guillemot banknotes till it was literally impossible for him to utter the words "multi-platform". Or perhaps Ubisoft's dashing marketing seers have worked out that PS3 Conviction sales wouldn't recover the additional outlay.

We await your speculations/derision. Make sure you check out the full interview - among other things, it contains what is quite possibly the only mimed brutal interrogation in the history of developer coverage.

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction is out for PC and Xbox 360 in October.