Heavy Rain Is Only Possible on the PlayStation 3

Heavy Rain is a very ambitious project. It sounds mundane at first, with four characters pitted on the trail of the Origami Killer and with promises of cinematic action. But once you factor in the work David Cage and most of his team have done on Fahrenheit earlier in their careers, Heavy Rain becomes one of the most interesting projects of 2010, with complex character interactions, varied paths to each objective and a narrative thread that might include the death of three of the four main characters.

And Heavy Rain is a PlayStation 3 exclusive Sony is pushing quite heavily as a reason for more adventure minded gamers to pick up the console. So, it was inevitable that gamers would ask whether the Xbox 360 could have handled the game.

In response to a question asked at the Eurogamer Expo, Cage told the audience that “Whatever I answer, my answer will be suspicious... Honestly, I don't think so. I think it had to be on PS3 because of the hardware, the architecture of the PS3 is extremely powerful... If you make a real PS3 engine, then you can have fantastic performances. If you try to port from another platform it becomes difficult.”

Of course, a familiarity with the Sony made platforms might have something with Cage's PlayStation 3 crush. He says that “I play PSone, PS2, it's really a part of my culture. The controller is part of my home... I'm not so much into graphics, I don't believe you need ultra realistic graphics to get emotion, but that was the idea. With this approach PS3 was by far the best platform.”

It remains to be seen whether the slew of exclusives, including God of War III and Gran Turismo 5, will attract more players to the PlayStation 3 than to the Xbox 360.