No PC version of Force Unleashed, feeble excuses made

Cameron Suey has attempted to explain why there will be no version of the upcoming Star Wars: The Force Unleashed game for the PC, despite there being Wii, PSP and DS versions.

According to Mr Suey: "Someone with a $4,000 (£2,000) high-end system would definitely be able to play the Euphoria, the DMM and really technical elements of the game.

"But someone with a low-end PC would have a watered down experience, they would have to turn all the settings down and it wouldn't be the same game."

This raises questions as to whether the PSP, DS and Wii versions will be "the same game" as those being made for the 360 and PS3.

Mr Suey continued: "On the other hand if we made that game for as many people as possible, because we are trying to make mass market games, something that everybody can enjoy, well then it's not taking advantage of what those $4,000 systems can do.

"So one way or the other depending on how you build that lead PC SKU, it's not going to be for the same amount of people, it's going to be not as good or only for a select few people."

Mr Suey didn't rule out future games for the PC market, just that there will be no version of Force Unleashed.

"We're definitely not out of the PC market. It's just with our choice for this game, with the known quantity for the consoles, and every console is the same with the same processing power, it made sense for us to develop for those consoles."

"We started on the PC. Unfortunately that goes back to the point of such a variance of the platform. There wasn't such a variance at that time and it made a lot more sense to develop on PC.

"The message is that we're not shutting the door on PC at all. Just for this project it happens to be that we don't have a PC SKU. I really hope that everyone can experience this game on a platform eventually."

Just not on the PC, of course. You can imagine the reaction to this in the PC community. Questions about the validity of Mr Suey's comments were instantly raised, focusing on the comments made about any PC version not being "the same game" as its console brethren.

As has been mentioned, the game is coming out on the PS2, PSP, Nintendo DS and the Wii, all of which have significantly less power than the majority of games-ready PCs, even those defined as entry level.

Gamers have asked whether Mr Suey is saying these versions will compete with the PS3 and 360 versions in terms of the "full experience".

Others have asked whether the reasons given above are a mere smokescreen for the financial reasons for pulling the plug on a PC version, namely that the immediate return on console versions will likely be much higher.

Curiously, if this were the case and Mr Suey had said so, the reaction would have been far less vehement than it is now. At least, it is arguable that this would have been the case.

Take the BioWare example - Mass Effect was initially released on console, sold a lot, then a PC version was released later. The community's main beef was with proposed draconian copy protection issues, not the fact there was a delay in release.

Some have sided, at least partially, with Mr Suey, saying the difficulties of developing for the PC, when taking potential revenues into account, make a lot of projects not worth the effort. However, one could easily point to World of Warcraft, Age of Conan, the Half Life series and the PC version of Call of Duty 4 as examples of games that made a hell of a lot of money for their developers.

Whatever the real reasons behind the lack of a PC version, quite a few people have expressed solidarity and a common desire to boycott LucasArts games - on all platforms, it needs to be said.