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Acclaimed Xbox RPG Jade Empire would have been a great Xbox 360 launch game, and the decision not to hold the game back for the new platform is one of very few regrets former BioWare boss Dr. Greg Zeschuk has.
Asked by GamesIndustry whether he had any regrets or would have done anything differently, Zeschuk said: “I think making Jade Empire a 360 launch title would have been massive. That’s a really specific example, but we made a choice, and there are a lot of factors that go into these choices and you can’t revisit them.
“But it’s interesting, because it reminds me of what’s going on right now with analysts saying that game sales are down because people are waiting for new consoles, and we released Jade Empire into that kind of window. In retrospect, it would’ve been great to put off a bit and polish the game a bit more.”
Likewise, Zeschuk would have liked to have gotten Mass Effect into stores a little closer to the launch of the Xbox 360.
“We never really had a true launch title right at the beginning, and that would’ve been fun to have done that once. Mass Effect 1 was in a launch window but ended up kind of being about nine months later or something,” he explained. “It would’ve been cool to have a game at launch because it could have changed a lot of dynamics.”
These days Zeschuk doesn’t have to concern himself with launch windows, having left BioWare to work on The Beer Diaries, a passion project to celebrate and promote craft beer around the world.
Did you enjoy Jade Empire on Xbox, or do you believe it would have benefited from being pushed back for release on Xbox 360? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: GamesIndustry International
