Originally pitched to Microsoft and rejected, Ninja Theory’s Heavenly Sword became a PS3 exclusive. Speaking to CVG, Ninja Theory revealed just how hard it was for a small studio to turn a profit with an ambitious game like Heavenly Sword.

“It’s difficult. Heavenly Sword came out pretty early on the PS3, and we sold, I think, a million and a half copies, and that’s still not enough as an independent studio to break even,” said co-founder Tameem Antoniades.

“The publisher potentially breaks even at that point, but the developers don’t,” he added, and it’s for this reason that the developer chose to go multi-platform with its latest upcoming quest, Enslaved.

I think it’s extremely unfortunate that such a good game like Heavenly Sword didn’t sell more but it was released at the time the PS3 was still trying to get the attention of gamers. Sony’s lack of marketing the game didn’t help either.

Hopefully we’ll still see a sequel to Heavenly Sword.