There's a pretty extensive Saints Row 2 Interview on VideoGamer.com talking with Dan Sutton, associate producer on Volition's upcoming open-world sequel. Some of the ground they cover includes the difficulties of open-world development, testing, developing for different platforms, the possibility of an MMO Saints Row game, DLC, a lot of PS3-specific questions, and more. One answer reveals they may endeavor to overcome the inherent difficulties of making a demo for this sort of game:

It's possible to make, yes. We haven't said if we're going to or not, but it's definitely possible. We did it for the first one and it was really really good for us. We're definitely looking into doing that. Our main focus right now is making sure we get the game looking hot. After that we look into getting a demo out during out Microsoft submission time or PlayStation submission time. Usually with game companies you submit to them a couple of months before the final product and you have time between there to decide if you want to or not. I think it depends. PlayStation owners would definitely like to see it and have hands on, because it really sold the Xbox for us, having a demo I think. Especially as PlayStation hasn't had a hands-on, it would be beneficial. We're definitely looking at doing that. It's on our radar right now. It just depends what the big bosses at Volition and THQ decide. I think there are studies that came out like two or three weeks ago where they said that actually demos don't help sales. Which is tough for developers, as we want to give it to people too. With our game we have a fun enough game and a sandbox experience that people are only going to buy it because of that. As long as that stays the same we definitely want to do it.