March 12th, 2010

Team Bondi struggling with Xbox 360 version of L.A. Noire?

Published at 8:11 AM PST

This interesting news item slipped by us earlier this week, so we apologize for being a tad late on the news post.

GoFanboy stated earlier this week that there are apparent issues with the Xbox 360 version of L.A. Noire. The issues relate particularly to the DVD format and space available on the disk. Team Bondi has apparently become very frustrated with the format, and Take-Two has stationed Jeronimo Barrera at Team Bondi's offices to help clam the situation and provide additional support on the size limitations problem.

Those who have been following the news surrounding L.A. Noire from the beginning - and lets face it, there hasn't been much in the way of factual news - will remember that the game was originally a PlayStation 3 exclusive. The trip from PS3-only to multi-platform has been a long one though. It all started around the beginning of 2008 when an advertisement for a Lead Animator to manage the Animation/motion capture for the game appeared on GameSutra which requested both PS3 and 360 experience, at the time we speculated as to the possibility of the game becoming multi-platform.

Furthermore, in March of '08 it was rumored that Sony had dropped all funding towards the game due to some bad vibes between Former SCE Worldwide Studios President, Phil Harrison, and Team Bondi Head, Brendan McNamara. Then in September of 2008, Tom Crago, the President of the Game Developers' Association of Australia, stated that the game was coming to PS3 and 360 - however being that Mr. Crago was in no way connected to Team Bondi, this statement was merely rumor. In January of 2009, a year after our first speculation of the game becoming multi-platform, the advertisement for a Lead Animator re-appeared on GameSutra. Then finally, prior to March 2010's edition GameInformer, it is announced by a GI staff member that the game will be available for both the PS3 and 360.

While GoFanboy notes that the major concern is the possibility of the game returning to a PS3-exclusive, we're a little more worried about any release delay ramifications caused by the size limitations of the 360, seeing as how long the game has been floating along for now we would hate to see the game halted any longer.

This news isn't official, and it probably won't become official anytime soon, so as always we remind you to take it as mere rumor and hope for the best. At the end of the day, Rockstar are well known for performing the unimaginable when it comes to overcoming pitfalls - after all, nobody ever expected full-fledged Grand Theft Auto games on the PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS or iPhone. Plus, if Jeronimo Barrera is in fact stationed at Team Bondi currently, we have faith in everything working out.

Source: GoFanboy