Sony would "probably" have cancelled The Last Guardian, were it not for the many fans who regularly requested an update on the game's status.
Worldwide Studios President Shuhei Yoshida revealed the news in the latest issue of Edge, adding that the transition from PS3 to PS4 was "really, really tough. Especially because we were not sure if the game could be made.
"Tech issues aside, the game was still early in development, so we had to have a really strong desire to continue the project and rebuild on PS4. And of course we believed in the vision of Ueda-san, and Ueda-san and the core teams really wanted to see this realised, and so did I. Having so many people asking us about the game was great encouragement for us to continue the development."
Asked specifically if Sony could have realistically cancelled the game after so many years in development, Yoshida replied, "If everyone stopped asking about it, probably we would have."
The Last Guardian was initially revealed as a PS3 game at E3 2009 before falling off the radar until its re-announcement as a PS4 title last month.
Sony currently expects the game to be released in late 2016.