Vlad Ceraldi, president and CEO of Hothead Games, wants to set the record straight: No one at Hothead or Penny Arcade hates the Playstation 3.
The reason Penny Arcade Adventures: On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One was so long in coming to the Playstation Network had nothing to do with favoritism, and everything to do with technology.
"Everyone seemed to come up with their own rumors," Ceraldi said. "They thought there was exclusivity or that Penny Arcade doesn't like the Playstation 3 but that wasn't it at all."
After announcing their game for the PC, Linux and Xbox 360 Hothead discovered they had to essentially build their own version of the Torque game engine to bring the Penny Arcade Adventures they wanted to consoles and it took much longer than they expected.
"At that point we were fully committed to getting the game done as soon as we could," Ceraldi said. "So we focused on PC, linux and what we had already announced, the Xbox."
"As soon as we finished and got approved we moved those developers to the playstation and they started working on it for the Playstation Network," he said. "Until we got it running the way we wanted to look, we weren't going to announce anything."
"As soon as we did a full play through of the game we announced."
Future episodes of the game—Ceraldi believes there will be a total of four for this particular adventure—will still not arrive at the same time for all platforms.
While their was a lengthy delay between the release of Penny Arcade Adventures on the Xbox 360 and it coming to the Playstation Network, the new episodes will likely hit within weeks of one another. The Playstation Network will likely still be the last platform the episodes are developed for, he added.
While Ceraldi wouldn't talk hard numbers, he said that the game has had "very very solid numbers" for a digitally distributed game with no retail.
"We are an indie company," he added.
The future of the budding franchise appears to be strong. Ceraldi said that they may even look into releasing a box set or special edition of all of the episodes for Penny Arcade Adventures: On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness at retailers or online.
While they would love to bring the episodic game to the Wii, the size limits for Wii Ware prevent them from going the digital distribution method, he said. But that doesn't mean it couldn't come out down the line as a boxed game for Nintendo's console.
"Id love to be on the platform," Ceraldi said. "It's purely an issue of size limit. Our game is just too big. If they increase that limit or add a harddrive, anything like that we would revisit (Wii Ware)."
And what happens after the episodic game has run it's course?
"Our goal is to have those single episodes. have them part of an overarching story. We speced out a story arch for it and Tycho has said he would like to do four episodes.
"I think the plan is that we may do a different game. Different theme but still Penny Arcade. They've done many different storylines and settings. There is lots of work they would like to explore."