So Long Old Friend. You've Deserved A Long Break.

creators Relentless Software have all but closed the book on the PlayStation 3's premium quiz franchise, stating that the series failed to meet the right demographic on PlayStation 3. With the studio going independent after a long partnership with Sony, co-founder Andrew Eades told Eurogamer that the developer is now looking to pursue other avenues.

"The old business. We've pretty much closed that off now - the chapter has ended," he said of Buzz!, adding: "I don't think anyone can be happy with [Buzz! PS3] compared to PS2. We [Relentless] weren't enthralled by it's performance and we felt that the market got a bit too much Buzz! too soon on PS3.

"If you don't have 100 million consoles [as PS2 did when Buzz! first arrived], you don't have a broad-enough demographic to want our kind of game. Of course the idea was to bring the broad games straight to PlayStation 3 in the launch window, to try and attract that demographic.

"But to be honest, £425 for a console is not going to give you a big audience. And we struggled with price for a long time."

It makes sense, of course. We've always considered Buzz! a niche title, and without the strength of a large casual audience to back it, it's hard to imagine any of the Buzz! games doing gangbusters on PlayStation 3. Despite the series' struggles on PS3, Eades feels market conditions were to blame, and not Sony.

"Things we wanted to happen didn't happen, and that's not Sony's fault, that's not Relentless' fault. A lot of it is down to market conditions.

"The market changed. We haven't changed; we've always made the kind of games that we're going to continue making - that's for sure. The people we make games for don't own PS3s that much.

"A PlayStation 3 game is an expensive thing to make," he added, "and I don't think it makes much sense to spend that much money to make a game for such a small demographic. That's not Sony's fault, not our fault - that's the way the market is."

While clearly disappointed, Eades was keen to point out that Buzz! broke a lot of ground on PlayStation 3.

"It's extraordinary what we did," boasted Eades. "We had the first playable user-generated content before LittleBigPlanet; we had the first Trophies ever on a PlayStation game; and we also had the first Facebook connect in a PlayStation game - on any console in fact.

"We did a number of projects on Buzz, some of which are still to see the light of day. We were very proud of what we did there."

With Relentless moving on to pastures new — what will become of Buzz! in the future? Could another studio make a game under the Buzz! banner, for example?

"Well they could, but I challenge anyone to be better than us at a quiz game and certainly a Buzz! game. A fresh pair of eyes might help in some respects, but when you've done Buzz! for five years it's in your bones."

Eades wouldn't be drawn on whether or not Relentless has had access to Sony's new portable, the NGP. We've got our fingers-crossed that this isn't the end of Buzz! just yet though. The franchise could definitely do with a long break, but we're hoping it returns at some point in the future. Who knows, by the time the titular host's done tanning himself in the sun, the PS3 install-base might have jumped to a point where it makes sense again for Relentless.

[source eurogamer.net]