God of War III PS3 Bound, Barlog Leaves Sony

Gamespot is reporting big news in the God of War world today. Fans of the series will be happy to know that the company has confirmed the next game will be released on the PlayStation 3. At the same time, the company also announced that God of War II producer Cory Barlog is no longer with SCEA. "Barlog's departure remains shrouded in mystery. So far, he has shared no information about his future plans on his personal blog, where he last posted in mid-October. His exit comes just under four months after God of War series creative director, David Jaffe announced he was leaving SCEA's employ after 14 years."

But?

[LWATCDR]

Will it be a port of the PS2 version?
Sorry I just couldn't understand why GOW2 wasn't a PS3 Exclusive? It would be like Microsoft coming out with Halo 3 for the XBox.

What does this mean for GoW?

[Devir]

Ok, GoW was simply one of my favorite series for the PS2. It took me a while to pick up, pretty much after it wentto the $20 classics mode.

GoW2 was even more so incredible in story, game play and just all out fun for mature people.

Taking the PS3 out of the equation (I have one) what does his departure mean for the series?

How much input did he have, how much of the game was because of him? Will his departure leave the GoW franchise an empty shell the same way When Peter Molyneax left Bullfrog and EA made a valient attempt at Dungeon Keeper 2 and Populous whatever. Ultima became a nothing when Garriot left...

People hate Sony, and Microsoft, and some cheer when good people leave those companies. But what do these departures really mean to the Game franchises we love?

I can tell you why...

[Hamster Lover]

If you watched any of the DVD extras that came with God of War, you would have heard David Jaffe talk about how much money was spent developing all of the custom tools they used to create the game and how much material didn't make it into God of War because of time constraints or technical hurdles. A lot of that material made it into God of War 2, such as the Icarus wings, and that combined with the mature development tools allowed SCEA to push God of War 2 out just a year after God of War was released. If they had moved the game to the PS3 such a timeline would have been impossible and it is likely the game would still be in development.

Re:But?

[LWATCDR]

As far as being a financial failure I just don't know if I trust that. I wonder if you may not be seeing Hollywood style accounting there.
Only being popular in North America? North America is a HUGE market. I frankly don't think that an American made console will ever do well in Japan. The Japanese market is far more nationalistic than the US market. Heck PCs had a hard time making it in Japan. Fujitsu and a few other Japanese PC manufactures made MS-DOS but not PC compatible machines for years that dominated the Japanese market. Only when the Japanese made a big push in laptops in the US did that really change in Japan. Selling a US console in Japan is probably harder then selling a Japanese cowboy hat in the US. The Japanese are going to buy Japanese video game consoles and that is that.
I do agree with your third point. However I wouldn't count the 360 out as a Playstation killer. The Wii is the current run away hit but with the hard core gamers I know the 360 is the current king. They love the online play and they love the graphics. The 360 seem to be the king of HD gaming in North America and Europe.