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PlayStation's top executive for Europe was noncommittal when asked in an interview if DriveClub would ever release a free version for PlayStation Plus subscribers, as was promised nearly two years ago.
To Metro, Jim Ryan, the president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, said a free DriveClub release is "still being looked at." Asked directly if he could guarantee it would still happen, he replied, "I can't say anything at this stage."
The free edition was one of the casualties of DriveClub's mangled October launch, in which numerous features for the online racer were unavailable for more than a month.
Polygon has reached out to representatives of Sony Computer Entertainment America, which is based on the west coast, to ask for any additional comment or clarification on the matter. We will update this post with any reply received.
Sony immediately pulled back the free release while it and developer Evolution Studios pressed to resolve the problems, and offering paying customers free downloadable content by way of an apology.
Ryan said that SCEE and Evolution (which is based in the U.K.) was "absolutely distraught" over DriveClub's humiliating launch and worked feverishly to fix the problems. "I don't think anybody should labor under the opinion that there was any feeling of insouciance or anybody being relaxed about that being the case," he told Metro. "People were working 24/7, and that's an expression that's lightly used but people were working 24/7 trying to fix this."
DriveClub has since stabilized. While Polygon's critic called it a competent racer with top-of-the-line presentation, it said most of the game's appeal comes from its online feature set. For more, see the full review.
