Media Molecule is best known these days as the developer behind Dreams. Still, the studio rose to prominence from the back of its LittleBigPlanet series, with mascot Sackboy becoming synonymous with PlayStation. According to studio co-founder Mark Healey, in the early days, Microsoft was "on the prowl" and "kind of trying to steal" the studio from Sony, resulting in a drunken proposition.
Healey revealed the salacious tale to MinnMax (thanks, Eurogamer), where he showed how loose the initial relation with PlayStation platform holder Sony was: "The funny thing is, we didn't have anything in writing to say that we were actually going to continue with [Sony] or that they even owned what we were doing, is my memory of it."
Revealing that Microsoft came calling around this time, Healey said: "Technically, we could have done [that]. We could have been like, 'Yeah fuck it, let's go with Microsoft. They are probably going to give us a load of money.'" The studio co-founder said Media Molecule wouldn't have felt right breaking its gentlemanly agreement with Sony, which he felt would have been "morally corrupt".
Recounting how the whole situation came to a head, Heally recalls a boozy evening shared between Media Molecule and an unnamed Microsoft executive: "[We] went out and got a bit drunk, and it was just as we were dropping the guy off at his hotel, he was kind of like 'Oh shit, I was on a mission here! I've got to at least say something.' And he was, 'Oh you, by the way, guys, you know we would be happy to blah blah blah take you on if you want to jump ship to us' or something like that. And you could tell he was almost embarrassed to say it because it would have been a very naughty thing to do. And we didn't because, you know, we are nice people, and we were very grateful that Sony gave us that chance."