Porting console-only titles to PC is becoming almost an afterthought, something a publisher might only do if a game was successful enough to justify the extra effort and investment to share it beyond the confines of living room hardware. It’s no great surprise then that some studios just don’t have the experience to draw on to get their titles onto the PC, a problem Dark Souls developer From Software encountered bringing its sadistically hard RPG to the platform.
The game’s producer, Daisuke Uchi, speaking with Digital Spy, says From Software “hadn’t perceived how much trouble” it would hit bringing the game across from the PS3.
“In terms of technical difficulties obviously us being a Japanese publisher and a Japanese developer, the PC market in Japan is so small that we hadn’t had very much experience … We did have so many things we had to decide, so many things we had to talk about and discuss.”
Uchi goes on to mention that despite the issues they encountered, it was still a worthwhile endeavour, if only to get a great understanding of what’s involved:
“It was a great experience but it was a rough ride to be honest in terms of being able to simply port the console version to the PC … I believe that this experience and this occasion will be very helpful in anything else that we create on the PC.”
…
“But at the same time, knowing that the PC market is important and with this experience, regardless of what kind of project we work with we probably will have a PC version in mind if we do decide to do it.”
The full interview over at Digital Spy contains a few more tidbits, including a short discussion on the game’s performance on PC compared to the PS3.
Dark Souls: Prepare to Die interview: Namco on its challenging PC port [Digital Spy]
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