Heavy Rain was destined for Xbox 360, but never made it

By Michael Archambault
last updated

The critically acclaimed interactive action-adventure video game, Heavy Rain, landed on Sony’s PlayStation 3 in February 2010 and was an instant hit with fans around the world. Heavy Rain landed impressive scores including a 9/10 from IGN and a 9.5/10 from Game Informer. What has recently been unveiled is that Microsoft had a chance to publish the game, but decided to pass it up.

David Cage of Quantic Dream stated that Microsoft choose not to publish the game on Xbox 360 as they were “scared” of the game’s plotline:

"[Microsoft] got scared by the fact that Heavy Rain was about kids being kidnapped.”

It is interesting to image a board at Microsoft reviewing the game and stating that it was simply too risky of a title to launch on their platform. While some may be quick to criticize the boys up in Redmond, Cage states that he still feels Microsoft is a “great company”.

Cage finished by stating that the game was about “love” and not “blood”, “[Sony and Quantic Dream] could understand each other, and [that] is how Heavy Rain  happened” for PlayStation 3 and not Xbox 360.

Source: Digital Spy via The Verge

48 Comments
  • thanks for that awesome news
  • HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!!!! I still can't stop laughing at this comment. HAHAHAHAH!!! This is the best first comment I've read on any website. Ever!
  • err....
  • Did they not see the movie Taken?
  • Lol! I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.
  • Good luck
  • Yay!
  • Did they not read the book?
  • How about this one.
    http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tall_Man_(film) Movie was meh, but was about abducted kids.
  • But lets release Grand Theft Auto & Saints Row which let's you rob banks and shoot innocent people. Yay!!!! (just a rant dont ridicule me for some Christian sheep). I'm just as confused.
  • I ridicule you!!!!!  I point the finger of shame at you!!!!!
  • Christian sheep ? WOW -_-
  • Sheeple
  • If you're anti Christian good i don't care but please don't troll me for no reason thank you very much!
  • Let me rephrase my comments was taken out of context. I meant like one of those who try to boycott every violent video game and such because it goes against Christian values.
  • What have you got against Christians?
  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPOfurmrjxo
  • Wow, you can post a link to George Carlin. Amazing.
  • Lol yea these guys think they are geniuses lol vlad cant even start an argument what an epic fail :)
  • You don't have to be a genius to see Carlin is right. You just have to think instead of believing what you are told.
  • It's awesome that you are just doing what you're told. Effectively doing the very same thing you are criticizing others even though you are simply using an overarching generalization for an entire population of people about whom you are saying do nothing more than what they are told and so no critical thinking. It sure took a lot of critical thinking to post an original, and likely copyrighted comedic work, to try and do your critical thinking for you.
  • Of course I'm using "an overarching generalization". But in my experience, this generalization is true more often than not. I agree that there are religious people that put a lot of thought into it, and still believe. They have to do a lot of mental gymnastics in order to reconcile the contradictions, but they somehow manage to do it. But for most people, finding out that your most cherished believes may be wrong it's physically painful, and they try to avoid the pain. So they find excuses for the contradictions, or they just ignore them. So I don't blame any of you for dismissing my posts. It's a natural thing to do. I was a believer for 20 years, until 10 years ago I couldn't reconcile the contradictions anymore. It was a gradual process, but the straw that broke the camel’s back was a documentary on National Geographic about birds. The birds (I think they were blue footed boobies) had two chicks each year. In the years that food was plentiful, both chicks were raised successfully. However, in the years when the food was scarce, the slightly bigger chick killed the younger chick. Every single time. And most of the time the mother watched, and didn't intervene. As Carlin said, if this is the best a god can do, he should be fired from his job. Anyway, not one of the people replying to me questioned Carlin's arguments, you were all trying to shoot the messenger, because I was causing you pain by questioning your believes. Btw, that video was posted on YouTube 4 years ago. If there were any copyright issues, I think it would have been removed by now. But keep trying to find issues with the messenger, instead of the actual content, if it makes you feel better. Of course I could be wrong. If I ever find that my current believes create more contradictions than religion, I will reconsider my position. However, at this point, it doesn't seem likely. But enough of this. We are way past off-topic, and I don't think this is the best place to discuss this. 
  • Amazingly well said, and in total agreement. You sir are a gentleman and a scholar... Question everything, and then question everything some more.
  • Just another reason why Microsoft clearly doesn't understand what consumers want. Its just a game, I'm sure GTA5 is more gruesome.
  • Its the regulators around the world..
  • I like David Cage, I respect him as a designer, but as a pitch man, he's been shown to be full of sh*t on more than a few occasions. Remember when he said that "Heavy Rain is only possible on the PS3"? Yeah, I'm calling BS on this whole thing.
  • Agreed. I take any stories from him with a grain of salt.
  • In a sense he was right, it was only possible on the PS3 after all!
  • Microsoft did this same 'fail' with Grand Theft Auto originally and now this. Sometimes Microsoft don't have a clue and that's my worry with the Nokia buyout.
  • I know they probably didn't know how big of a hit it would be, but these sort of decisions are like Nintendo's decisions from the early 90s when blood wasn't allowed for Mortal Kombat.  I appreciate the concern, but censorship hurts.  They allow shooting of innocent shoppers in a mall in CoD, but not this.  I can understand if they want to ban some sort of rape game where you use Kinect to rape people and/or other things... but they should see a good story when it's presented to them.
  • After the first dozen Parental Units hit the Boards warning that their kids had nightmares about being kidnapped after playing it it would have become a CNN item on a slow news day. Bit of a PR "nightmare" for MS. I can see their reasoning.
    And no amount of admonishing the Parentals for letting the little Brother play the Big Brother's game would wash it away.
    Its too bad, since obviously this didn't happen when it was on Playstation, possibly because there aren't enough of them out there ;) Very interesting to learn MS's thinking on it.
  • It would be a small pr hit that would probably sell a few million more units of the game. You can't worry about a small minority of people that like to complain about anything in the world they don't like.
  • Seems understandable with the plot on paper, but I would have loved to have the chance to play this on Xbox.
  • Me an you both
  • Enjoyed this game very much on my PS3. Along with The Last of Us and the Uncharted series. The PC has been fine for some games that are exclusives.
  • Agreed!
  • This game ended up being my favorite game of all time. (And that's a long time for me) Could not believe how much I enjoyed it. I actually enjoyed it so much that I had a hard time coming back to more traditional games. I just did not enjoy any other games after that for a while. Ended up playing through it again and then took a few month leave of absence from gaming for a while. After that it took a combination of SOC/ICO collection and Halo Reach to get me back.
  • Game wasn't a hit or a flop. Sold 2.5 million units but the high development cost meant it just broke even. Business-wise not a great loss for Microsoft.
  • Microsoft didn't develop the game. They were asked to publish it. So, they would have made money it regardless of the development costs. Just stick the adult rating on it and let the parents worry about censoring the content their kids watch.
  • LOL. It's not as simple as that. Who do thinks funds the developer? Developers pitch a concept, maybe show an early prototype, and get the money from the publishers. Very few devs can fund a finished product and then shop around for a publisher. At least in the console business. Mobile's another story. Sony invested in this title. They didn't lose money but they didn't make any coin either.
  • With the likes of GTA and COD (especially with infamous airport scene) on the 360, I guess I'm missing what exactly they were scared about. But now that I think about it, maybe because it involved kids?
  • This game alone is one of the few reasons I am still strongly considering purchasing a PlayStation 3.
  • Heavy Rain is a piece of art. It is perfect in every way. Microsoft made a terrible decision.
  • Such an amazing game.
  • Awsome game. Gonna replay it soon, when it gets dark and rainy!
  • This is one of the few (if not the only) game(s) which made me sad about choosing an Xbox over a PS. Don't get me wrong, i still love my Xbox and the Xbox exclusives like Halo, but this game looks so incredibly good...
  • Funny how they said no were scared to put out a story about kidnapping children......... GTA is just fine
  • The next game by Quantum can be really awesome with Kinect, but I think they won't release on Xbox ever again