Industry veteran Will Wright has revealed that release of The was a close run thing, and the game very nearly wasn't given the go ahead. In fact, if the game designer hadn't pushed, might never have launched their record-breaking series.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun blog report that Wright had to convince EA executives that the game was worthy of release, after testing was "a disaster," the game being called "The Toilet Game" internally.

"We had a product review meeting at where we had to decide whether we'd publish this thing or not...and the executive said 'No, let's do [something else]'."

Wright and small team continued work on the project in secret, the game's character interaction eventually earning Wright another chance with the suits. "I thought the game would either do a million units or... 50," Wright admitted. "I thought a million would be a hit. It would be a hit or a total dog."

Apparently, then, could have been released two years earlier than it eventually was.

Wright's should be out later this year.

By Luke Guttridge