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While writing my review of Sam and Max: Season One I found myself wondering how a PC game which had already been out for two years made its way to a major console (the Wii). Telltale Games' Marketing Coordinator Emily Morganti was good enough to answer my questions. Heather (Infinite Bits): What was the reason behind the long delay between releasing Sam & Max: Season One for the PC and releasing it for the Wii?
Emily (Telltale Games): When we started Sam & Max Season One back in 2006, our studio wasn’t equipped for Wii development. We use the same development tools for all of our games and at that time, our tools were PC-only. We were interested in bringing the game to Wii but since we weren’t yet set up to do this and we had our hands full with the PC version (the first seasonal episodic game series), the time just wasn’t right.
After Sam & Max Season One wrapped up, we worked with Ubisoft to develop CSI: Hard Evidence for the Wii. This benefited Sam & Max because it allowed us to expand our development tools to the Wii. As soon as CSI: Hard Evidence was finished, we thought about which game to bring to Wii next and decided Sam & Max was the way to go.
Did the relatively small storage space of the Wii play a part in your decision to release the game as a disc of the full season rather than as monthly downloadable episodes like with the PC game?
Since the Sam & Max episodes were already complete, it made more sense to put it out on a retail disc than as episodic downloads, both from a development standpoint and also to provide more instant gratification to the consumers. Also, we were already working on a WiiWare title (Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People) and we wanted to balance that out with a retail product. Is there currently a plan to release this game onto any other consoles?
Nothing to officially announce at the moment, but we are interested in getting our games into as many places as possible! Stay tuned… The game has been reported to be virtually identical in gameplay for the PC and the Wii. If this is true, what was the incentive to put the game on console after such a delay? If the two versions of the game are are in fact different, what are the major differences?
We had a lot of requests for Sam & Max on the Wii – in fact, the fans launched an email write-in campaign before the first episode even came out on PC! Rumors about Sam & Max on the Wii kept surfacing online and they were always met with enthusiasm from the fans, so we knew there was a demand. Also, we often liken our games to interactive sitcoms, and the perfect place to enjoy a sitcom is in your living room, lying on the couch. That’s just not something you can do with a PC game, so we think the Wii is a really good fit for this type of content. And there’s a large audience on the Wii that we’re reaching with this release, who either don’t play games on the PC or weren’t even aware of the PC version.
As far as differences go, there are a few – for example, the Wii version of Season One can be played in widescreen and the PC version can’t, but on the whole the two versions are the same. Why mess with a good thing?! :)
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