David Cage: Microsoft Didn't Understand Our Goals with Heavy Rain

Heavy Rain could very well have soaked the Xbox 360 to its circuits, but Microsoft decided to pass on the project due to its child abduction plotline. Speaking as part of a BAFTA event in London overnight, Quantic Dream’s founder David Cage explained that the French studio actually pitched the project to the Redmond-based manufacturer at the same time as Sony.

“We were pitching Heavy Rain to different publishers, including Sony, and we went to Microsoft,” he said. “We had a very long talk and they loved Fahrenheit, and they really wanted to do something with us. They got scared by the fact that Heavy Rain was about kids being kidnapped, and they said, 'This is an issue, we want to change it.’”

The Xbox maker’s resistance to the original premise prompted the Parisian company to sever ties with the platform holder. “For me, that was a very interesting signal,” he explained. “It was like, I don't think that we can work together, because you don't understand what I'm trying to achieve here. They were scared of the scandal and scared of what people may write and what people may think.”

The game eventually went on to become one of the most popular PlayStation 3 exclusives. “Sony understood the upside of what we were doing,” he continued. “We could understand each other, and this is how Heavy Rain happened.” The relationship hasn’t soured either, with Beyond: Two Souls and an unannounced PlayStation 4 title in the pipeline.