According to a funny anecdote told by Mark Healey, co-founder of Media Molecule and creative director of Little Big Planet and Dreams, Microsoft tried to “steal” from under Sony’s nose the studio was now very close to being acquired by the Japanese company, with a informal proposal arrived after an evening of alcohol. Yes, you read that correctly.
“The funny thing is, we didn’t actually have anything in writing that said we would continue to collaborate with [Sony] or that they owned what we were doing, that’s my recollection,” Healey said in an interview with MinnMax. Recall that the first Little Big Planet came out in 2008 on PS3, while the acquisition of Media Molecule from part of Sony was made official in 2010.
“Technically, we could have done it. We could have said, ‘Yeah, screw it, let’s go with Microsoft. They’ll probably give us a lot of money.'”
Microsoft’s boozy proposal
As we know, in the end the deal did not go through, either because Media Molecule did not want to be unfair towards Sony, or because the proposal came from a tipsy Microsoft representative after an evening of alcohol.
“(We at Media Molecule and a Microsoft representative) went out and got a little drunk, and just as we were dropping the guy off at the hotel, he was like, ‘Oh shit, I was on a mission! I have to say at least something.”
“And he said, ‘Oh, by the way guys, we’d be happy to blah blah blah hire you if you’d like to join us,’ or something like that. And you could tell he was almost embarrassed to say that because it would be a very dirty thing to do. And Of course, we didn’t do it because we are good people and we are very grateful to Sony for giving us this opportunity.”
Healey later reiterated the concept, explaining that the proposal would not have been taken into consideration even if the Microsoft spokesperson had made it sober.
“It would never have happened. We already had a great relationship with Sony, so it was a done deal,” further adding that there was some kind of bond that already tied Media Molecule to Sony to some extent.
Healey left Media Molecule last year, 17 years after founding the studio. The team is currently working on a new project, described more as a game than a creative tool à la Dreams.
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