PD Orta on the PS2 would have been one hell of a downgrade. The sheer beauty of the game was one of its major selling points, and dare I say would have been lost in transition to the PS2. I don’t think the Orta team was particularly keen on the idea of developing anything for the PS2 after it had killed the Dreamcast, anyway.
Now that I won’t argue with. 
I’m not so sure that the difference would have made a great impact on sales vs. the sales it had on the Xbox, though; if a PS2 version had graphics that were as good as could be managed on the PS2 at that time, so that the game would stand out in comparison to other PS2 games in the same way that the Xbox version stood out amongst Xbox games, I still suspect that the sheer size of the PS2 audience would have given it greater sales than it found on Xbox - though perhaps not all that much greater. Out of curiosity, who was it that put forward the idea of making PDO an Xbox exclusive - Sega or Microsoft? Or isn’t this known?
Well I know that Microsoft were one of the reasons behind Sega’s early withdrawal from the hardware industry. Microsoft no doubt encouraged Sega to surrender its 8 million-strong Dreamcast userbase over to competing consoles to help build up a userbase for the Xbox.
Judging from interviews with the PD Orta team, it’s clear that they wanted to avoid making games for the PS2. I gather that the power of the Xbox was the main contributing factor in the final decision to develop a new Panzer game exclusively for the Xbox; now that they weren’t held back by hardware limitations Smilebit could easily unleash their full imaginations on unsuspecting gamers. Ultimately, the Xbox was in the best position to depict the world that Team Andromeda originally envisioned.
Sega was starting to turn the tide with the DC when they cut the plug. People realised that the PS2 was n’t all that and they had to wait another 18 months for the games they really wanted to play. If only Sega hanged on for two years more.
Actually Geoff I believe them (the PDO team) when they say they chosoe the XBox because it was the most powerful as oposed to disliking making games for the PS2.
I like that attitude too.If you can get me a better (new) PD game on the PS3 than it would be on the XBox2 then by all means make it a PS3 game.