Sony changes tune on WipEout HD

Sony has effectively denied reports that WipEout HD has been delayed due to a "specific technical problem", attributing the futuristic racer's extended incubation to the rush to add new features and make improvements.

Last week at E3, Sony Europe boss David Reeves told Eurogamer that "a really, really tricky technical problem that no region has been able to solve at the moment" is responsible for the game's delay. Subsequent reports suggested the game had failed industry-standard epilepsy tests by a large margin, requiring large-scale redevelopment.

"Regarding the speculation about health issues, we can assure you that we take consumer safety very seriously and monitor it very carefully," Sony said in a statement yesterday evening.

But, it claimed, the real reason WipEout HD is nowhere to be seen is that it's being fitted with all sorts of new gizmos and gadgets, including Trophy support and split-screen multiplayer.

"The reason for the delay of WipEout HD on PS3 has been due to the many improvements we have been making and the numerous features we've added to the game," the statement said, contradicting Reeves' comments.

"These include: eight reverse tracks, four extra ships, two alternative HUDS, two-player offline split-screen and XMB Trophy support. We look forward to sharing WipEout HD with you very soon."

WipEout HD remixes existing content from two excellent PSP outings in a 1080p, 60 frames-per-second downloadable format that we had a lot of good things to say about earlier this year. Whether it's a technical problem or feature creep holding it up, we hope Sony Liverpool sorts it out soon so we can get hold of the finished article.