Sony Worldwide Studios president, Shuhei Yoshida, says that Team Ico’s PlayStation 3 title, The Last Guardian, is making progress, but at a slow rate, due to the challenges associated with the vision of its creative lead, Fumito Ueda.
“It’s still a really important project and a vision we want to see realized, and Fumito’s vision is really causing a very difficult challenge for the developers, so there’s some scrapping and rebuilding — iteration in the process,” Yoshida shared with 1UP at the DICE conference in Last Vegas. “That’s why [it’s taking so long].”
Recent reports confirmed that Ueda had recently left the employ of Sony Computer Entertainment and is now working with them on a freelance basis. Yoshida points out that, while this is true, Ueda is still present in the office every day, and works long hour.
“He comes in every day, and he’s probably one of the people who works the longest hours,” Yoshida says. “The project has been making progress, but slow progress. So that’s tough, but we haven’t changed any focus.”
