In 2010, Platinum Games and SEGA released Bayonetta. While MadWorld was Platinum Games’ first game, Bayonetta made the studio famous. Yesterday, Bayonetta finally released on PC, but its existence raises two questions: why did Platinum Games take so long in porting one of its earlier games and does the company plan on porting other games to the PC?
PC Gamer recently interviewed Platinum Games regarding the PC release of Bayonetta, and as it turns out, the main problem with the port was the game engine.
“We developed Bayonetta 1 all by ourselves, and we optimized it for the Xbox 360, which resulted in some issues when porting the game to other platforms,” explained the Platinum Games spokesperson. “We had to dive back in and change a lot about the internal structure when we ported it to the Wii U, but I believe this experience helped us make the jump to PC go a lot smoother. Our current proprietary engine is built with PC-based cross-platform development in mind, so I think it should be easier now to avoid similar problems in the future.”
Of course, game engine problems are only one issue Platinum Games has to face when porting games to the PC. The biggest roadblock is actually receiving permission from game publishers. The spokesperson stated, “If it were up to us, we’d port all of our games to PC, but it all depends on the publishers.”
As of this moment, MadWorld, Infinite Space, Vanquish, Anarchy Reigns, The Wonderful 101, Bayonetta 2, Star Fox Zero, and Star Fox Guard are the only Platinum Games games not available on PC, not counting games currently in development and the cancelled Scalebound. If Bayonetta is successful on PC, some of these games, especially Vanquish and Anarchy Reigns, might see future PC releases. While I am personally excited for the potential of a Vanquish PC port, I also pray that Nintendo lets Platinum Games port Bayonetta 2 to the PC.
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