Ever since we reported on IGN's preview of Oblivion for the PS3 and how many aspects of the game had been tweaked and optimized for the system, a flood of rumors buried most of the good news in its wake. To send these rumors back out to sea, IGN approached Pete Hines, VP of Marketing and Personal Relations at Bethesda. Here's what went down.Rumor: There is a lack of downloadable content because of the PS3's technical limitations!!1!11!
- Hines: Nothing could be farther from the truth. There are two reasons why Orrery and Mehrunes's Razor will be absent from the get-go on the PS3. There's a concern about the balancing of the game and giving players access to the thieves den or wizard's tower right from the start of the game. The expansions may hit the PS-Store later, but not at initial launch.
- The other reason is that the designers haven't tested the PlayStation Network Store and the mechanisms for getting the content out there. The designers were rightfully concentrating on making the game itself much better and glitch-free. The PS-Store was low priority.
- The shader function that re-renders low-res textures will indeed get to the 360 and PC versions, but that's it. The other optimizations are specifically available on the PS3. Why? Because it's awesome.
Can we stop the rumor-mongering now? This isn't Sony saying this stuff -- it's Bethesda. Why would they lie on Sony's behalf? They wouldn't. In any case, look for the PS3 version of Oblivion in March. It should be super cool, if you're into that sort of thing.
