Remember the long technical path from demo to release and I suspect you have your anwser. Like all of his games, it's refreshing that if the decision is "graphics or gameplay" -- as I believe the case was here -- he always goes "gameplay".
You don't see much of that in the AAA industry these days.
True, but I think that gameplay has been the focus all along.
Perhaps it was a lesson learned from the past as there was a lack of total support for Will Wright back when he tried to convince people of his The Sims series idea. From the early stages on the first title did not ever have great graphics because Will did not get much resources to spend for sure...
To some extent Will Wright is also the kind of guy that will think mass-market (definitely after his success) and how a lot of potential customers will have 'outdated' hardware.
After all, all hype (justified or not) aside, that has been probably the main reasons why The Sims series could even be this record selling success story..
Cheers
