Prince of Persia Not Getting a Demo

It seems that the upcoming iteration of Prince of Persia will not be getting a demo. The developers of the game are saying that the production schedule is tight enough as it is, and that they do not have the time and the resources required to put together a demo of the game that would do it justice.

The new Prince of Persia title breaks the continuity established by the previous three games, and creates a new storyline. The same break with the past is also evident in the look of the game, which is now cell shaded. The linearity of the previous titles is also gone, and is replaced by an open world that the player can explore as he wishes.

Ben Mattes, who is a producer at Ubisoft and is involved in the creation of the game, argued: "There's a reality of production we have to live with which means if we did put together a demo there's a potential that it wouldn't be at the level we want it to be. Then what are you doing? You're doing your game a disservice by putting it in players' hands before it's ready. Nobody wants that."

A recent study that looked at how games fared in sales when demos were released found that those without demo versions were doing just as well in sales as the games for which demos were put out. Analysts are saying that the demo is needed and interesting only after the release of the game, as some of the players that are only marginally interested in the game might be convinced by it to pick it up.

The new Prince of Persia game is scheduled to come out on the PlayStation 3, the Xbox 360 and the PC around Christmas this year. A Nintendo DS game, which is not part of the same series but borrows some gameplay elements from it, might arrive a few weeks earlier.