During the PlayStation Network downtime in May, many thought the outlook for Sony and its properties looked mighty bleak. Network outages mean lowered consumer trust and, more often than not, a reluctance to return to the service at all. According to Mark Healey, creative director at Media Molecule, that wasn’t the case withLittleBigPlanet.
Because of Sony’s Welcome Back program, the number ofLittleBigPlanetusers has not only returned to its previous level, but “rocketed up.” This shouldn’t be too surprising. After all, when a game is free people will gladly partake. It would really be interesting to see how many, if any, of those folks went on to purchase the vastly improved sequel. Nevertheless, it’s a great thing for both Media Molecule and Sony.
As a side note, Healey assures fans that even though development duties for the Vita versionLittleBigPlanetare being handled by Double 11, recently acquired by Sony, they’re not letting it out of their sights: “Sackboy’s like our firstborn child; we can’t just let it walk off into the wilderness on its own. We’re going to be very protective of it.”
