Why the Console Industry Needs a Wake Up Call

[Aeni]

Gamasutra - News - XBLA re-certification price too costly for Fez team
by Mike Rose

The costly price of re-certifying Xbox Live Arcade games and releasing a new patch for a game on the digital service is holding Fez developer Polytron back from fixing a game-breaking bug.

Platform puzzler Fez was released on Xbox 360 back in April to glowing reviews, although the game contained a number of save-file corruption issues and game crashing bugs. An update was released last month to fix these issues, but was quickly taken down again when it came to light that the patch was leading to corrupted saves for some users.

Polytron's Phil Fish has now explained on the studio's blog that a new patch will not be supplied anymore as it is simply too expensive to release new patches for Xbox 360. Instead, the original patch has been put back online.

"We're not going to patch the patch," he explained, "because Microsoft would charge us tens of thousands of dollars to re-certify the game."

He reasoned that the save-corruption bug is only happening to a very small percent of players, and that paying Microsoft for the patch would make no sense for Polytron.

"It's a shitty numbers game to be playing for sure, but as a small independent, paying so much money for patches makes no sense at all," he said, "especially when you consider the alternative. Had Fez been released on Steam instead of XBLA, the game would have been fixed two weeks after release, at no cost to us. And if there was an issue with that patch, we could have fixed that right away too!"

He continued, "We believe the current patch is safe for an overwhelming majority of players... To the less-than-1 percent who are getting screwed, we sincerely apologize. We know this hurts you the most, because you're the ones who put the most times into the game."

He noted that Microsoft considers the original patch to be "good enough" for release, hence why the publisher allowed the patch to go back out.

"People often mistakenly believe that we got paid by Microsoft for being exclusive to their platform," he finished. "Nothing could be further from the truth. We pay them."

Some comments to head off potential remarks:

-Yes, consoles are no different than a PC in the sense that hardware undergo revisions every 6 months or so (The PS2 was notorious for this with so many different revisions and versions that bugs and freezes in games were not so uncommon)

-The game had lots and lots of lines of codes so, yes, there will be bugs that you cannot zero out before you release the game.

-This developer is an indie developer and not your typical ACTAVIZIONLOLOL company with lots of resources at their fingertips.

I guess Steam wins yet another round here over the other distribution models.

[Malacite]

Steam (and other services like it) will eventually become the norm, it's just a matter of time - same way the cable companies are resisting the inevitable transition to internet and ala carte television viewing. People are getting sick of being reamed by retail and sooner or later something's gonna give.

[Aeni]

Do you find it odd that Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo continually sell downloadable content for the same price as brick-and-mortar stores? I thought the packaging, manual and stickers cost something. Maybe I'm just naive ...

[Malacite]

It's because the major retailers all threaten to boycott their products entirely if they sell them at a reduced rate online - which is utter bullshit because digital sales don't have to factor in manuals, labeling, box art or the discs etc. In that respect, retailers in general can all DIAF.

[Raydeus]

I'm sorry, but while I loved the PS3 back in the day I think consoles need to DIAF.

The sacrifices PC games had to make to accommodate multi-platform releases have really hampered progress and increased costs.

[Malacite]

What sacrifices? FFXI is the only game that comes to mind that really gave up anything for the sake of conformity.

[Aeni]

I'm sorry, but while I loved the PS3 back in the day I think consoles need to DIAF.

The sacrifices PC games had to make to accommodate multi-platform releases have really hampered progress and increased costs.

You can also say the same about the iOS environment. The value that sand-boxed environments offer is to streamline development and reduce overhead costs. Developing for a PC is a headache, due to minimum requirements and having to nail down every possible bug to exist since the dawn of Windows computing.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

No, Ray's right.

I think Nintendo is the only of the big three that can justify a console. MS and Sony sell me games I could just play on PC. Nintendo sells me Nintendo games, thus the purchase is justified. Even 3DS and Vita stand to offer me games I couldn't get anywhere else, but I can't say that about 360 and PS3.

Someone could bust into my apartment and haul off with all my 360 games and I wouldn't chase him. If he touched Metroid Prime Trilogy and Xenoblade, the fucker wouldn't be able to walk again. And its not "because Nintendo" but because I can't download those games off Steam. The rest of them I could.

Consoles have always been able to sell themselves on the novelty of being more convenient than PCs, but now PS3 and 360 are less convenient than PC and you can't mod things. Nintendo, if nothing else, can sell their platforms on novelty. So MS and Sony should go third party.

[Raydeus]

Sad but true.

- - - Updated - - -

PS > MS half-assed things and Sony followed suit and rushed in after some investor pressure. So instead of delivering the next gen that would rival or even replace PC gaming they made things that were too expensive and gargantuan to work well as a console, but way too limited to replace a PC. All this while making decade old PC design mistakes in the process.




PPS > And I still think there's no way in hell it was Kutaragi-san's idea to put so little ram in it.

[Malacite]

I don't know about less convenient - they're still mostly plug 'n play and don't require upgrades or maintenance like PCs do - but the "power gap" between PCs and Consoles is growing again. when 360 and PS3 came out the gap closed a good deal, but now PCs are getting much, much better performance wise. The games are generally cheaper as well.

Again I cite my favorite example - BF3. There's just no comparing the console versions to the PC - far superior graphics, framerates, and most importantly up to 40 more players in a game session.

I very much doubt that the next console generation will be the last, but the one after just might be depending on how this gen goes and how much better PCs getting in the next 4~5 years - particularly if prices ever come down to reasonable levels where someone can build a good gaming rig without spending $1000+

Plus you have to factor in what might happen with Tablets as well.

EDIT: Ray, Kutaragi's original PS3 plans were rejected because it would have added another $300 to the cost.

[Raydeus]

Makes sense, if Sony had listened to Kutaragi-san the PS3 would've competed with PCs instead of consoles, and I'm pretty sure it would've displaced PC gaming for obvious reasons. But they half-assed it because they wanted to force things back into the console mold and price point. So they failed at both and Nintendo owned them with a Console that worked as a freaking console at a console's price point.

I'm pretty sure the next gen will be way less power oriented and more Nintendo-like with use of proven and cheaper technology and more focus on social/online features. Sony and MS will still make more powerful consoles than Nintendo of course, but they will probably scale down on hardware and production costs next time around.

Now, if I'm right the question will be what that could mean for PC gaming. I'm hoping it will lead to another split where PC games and Console games exist separately, with ports coming from time to time but no Console+PC releases for the most part. As it certainly didn't work this gen.

[Malacite]

Again, it's too early to speculate what the next systems will be like.

[Raydeus]

That's why I can speculate wildly. <_<;

It's just where I see it going after this gen.

[Malacite]

I'm just wondering how many whistles & bells are going to be tacked on this time around lol...

[DakAttack]

It costs $30,000 to submit an XBLA title to Microsoft for certification.