Production
D began production in 1994 for the 3DO console. With use of only three Amiga computers, WARP was able to harness impressive 3D visuals.
Because the storyline and graphic FMVs were more horrifying than any video game that had yet been released, head developer Kenji Eno resorted to a trick in order to get D published. The game was originally developed with no storyline, and Eno kept the story sequences a secret even from the other members of WARP. When the game was finished, he submitted a "clean" version (i.e. without the violent and disturbing story content of the complete version) for approval. He deliberately submitted the master late, knowing that part of the penalty was that he would have to deliver it by hand to the manufacturers in the USA. While on the plane ride to the USA, he switched the phony "clean" discs with the finalized discs, thus completely bypassing all censorship.[5]
Though it sold extremely well in Japan, D initially failed to make an impact in the US. Nevertheless Acclaim took it upon themselves to not only port D over to the Sega Saturn, Sony PlayStation and PC, but to localize all three versions to both the USA and Europe.[2][3][4] While most of these releases sold well, Sony failed to manufacture enough units of the Playstation version to match preorders, resulting in sales of less than a third of what they otherwise would have been. Kenji Eno explained:
When I released D on the PlayStation... the sales people gathered orders for 100,000 units, but Sony had given their other titles manufacturing priority. So Sony told me that they had only manufactured 40,000 units... But then, in the end, they had actually only manufactured only 28,000 units, which is very bad. So the sales people had gotten 100,000 preorders from retailers, but Sony wasn't able to manufacture all of them. I was very pissed about that, because one title like that for a small company is very important. If that game doesn't sell well, then that's very bad for the company...[5]
