Bethesda: Don't Install Doom 3 BFG Edition on Xbox 360

[MikeWehner]

Bethesda: Don't Install Doom 3 BFG Edition on Xbox 360

If you want to play the bonus retro titles included in this special edition, keep it off your Xbox 360's hard drive.

It's rare that a game publisher would advise against doing something that can extend the life of your game console, but that's just what Bethesda is doing when it comes to the just-released Doom 3 BFG Edition. It seems that due to a strange quirk with the Xbox 360 version of the title, those who decide to install the game on the system won't be able to access the bonus Doom or Doom 2 titles.

The news comes from Bethesda Global Community Lead Matt Grandstaff, commenting on a NowGamer [http://www.nowgamer.com/news/1635843/install_doom_3_bfg_and_you_cant_play_original_doom.html] article. "If you choose to install the game to the Xbox 360 hard drive, you will not be able to launch Doom or Doom 2," Grandstaff explains, "As their[sic] is no performance advantage to installing the game to your hard drive, we recommend not installing the game to avoid this issue."

While there may be no performance benefit to this particular title itself, the ability to install games onto a console's storage device can extend the life of your hardware. Negating countless hours of disc spinning means fewer moving parts, and therefore less opportunity for something to go wrong.

There has been no official word on whether the title will be updated to tweak the unfortunate issue, though we can't imagine getting a couple of 18-year-old PC games installed and running on the Xbox 360 would be particularly difficult.

Source: NowGamer [http://www.nowgamer.com/news/1637645/bethesda_we_recommend_not_installing_doom_3_bfg.html]

Permalink

 

[Xannidel]

Is this only on the 360 or has anyone had this issue with the PS3?

 

[mad825]

1.Why is this news coming from an obscure website? Why isn't it on their blog?
2.Why is there no performance benefits when installed onto the HDD? Disk access is faster via HDD than CD/DVD disc.

So many questions, so little answers.

 

[F'Angus]

Oh Bethesda, how you brighten our world with your inability to make even the simplest technology go your way. Perhaps you should get games tested before they're released..then fix them.

 

[Mahorfeus]

Oh Bethesda, how you brighten our world with your inability to make even the simplest technology go your way. Perhaps you should get games tested before they're released..then fix them.

Give them some credit. At least the Hellknights aren't walking backwards.

 

[duchaked]

that reminds me, I should install Borderlands 2 since I'm putting good hours of playtime on that disc

 

[NLS]

1.Why is this news coming from an obscure website? Why isn't it on their blog?
2.Why is there no performance benefits when installed onto the HDD? Disk access is faster via HDD than CD/DVD disc.

So many questions, so little answers.

If you load the whole game into RAM at startup (doom is just a couple MBs), you won't need to do it while the game is running, which would be the only situation I'd imagine loading time could kill your performance if loading from a slow media device. And again, we're talking about a few MBs, the whole loading operation will only be a matter of seconds, and if we're talking about perhaps 1 second more/less loading time when you boot up the game, then there's not much to worry about.

 

[getoffmycloud]

Oh Bethesda, how you brighten our world with your inability to make even the simplest technology go your way. Perhaps you should get games tested before they're released..then fix them.

But then we would miss out on all the fun it wouldn't be a Bethesda game if it didn't all go horribly wrong at some point.

 

[Ralen-Sharr]

1.Why is this news coming from an obscure website? Why isn't it on their blog?
2.Why is there no performance benefits when installed onto the HDD? Disk access is faster via HDD than CD/DVD disc.

So many questions, so little answers.

answer to ? #2
because doom and doom2 are both tiny as hell and could be loaded into the system memory in their entirety (if they were able to set it up to do that)

Seriously doom2 is in the realm of 20 megabytes for the whole game.

 

[Ranorak]

So, I suppose this will not find it's way to the XBLA marketplace?
At least not in it's current form?

I mean, if you buy it of there, you don't have much of a choice then to install in, right?!

 

[Ranorak]

Double Post.

Is playing from the disk really that bad?
I mean, I never installed a game on the harddisk, besides Battlefield 3.

Now, how much better would installing games be for my console, or performance for that matter?

Is it just loading times, or will I see some improvements in other areas as well?

 

[Sylveria]

Why would you want to play Doom on a console anyway?

 

[karloss01]

This is looking more and more of a waste of money. i still have doom 1 & 2 in addition to the master levels, final Doom, Doom 3 and Doom RoE and i also downloaded the XBLA versions of Doom 1 & 2. i can't see a single reason why i would buy this.

 

[Rad Party God]

Oh Bethesda, how you brighten our world with your inability to make even the simplest technology go your way. Perhaps you should get games tested before they're released..then fix them.

Give them some credit. At least the Hellknights aren't walking backwards.

Or flying for that matter...

It kinda surprises me that id Software missed such an opportunity with an almost 20 year old game.
I'm trying so hard not to blame Bethesda for this, but I can't just turn a blind eye on this matter.

Does cellphone games made you lazy Carmack?, I used to respect you, now, not so much.
Let's hope the PC version gets optimized this time, remember Rage?.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

While there may be no performance benefit to this particular title itself, the ability to install games onto a console's storage device can extend the life of your hardware. Negating countless hours of disc spinning means fewer moving parts, and therefore less opportunity for something to go wrong.

Hang on... isn't the most common storage device for the Xbox 360 a HDD? So you're not negating hours of disk spinning, you're just spinning the HDD platters instead of an optical disk.

 

[chiefohara]

bloody hell, glad they told me before i bought it friday!

 

[Doom972]

Why would you want to play Doom on a console anyway?

Especially when it's overpriced, and doesn't (to my knowledge) allows the use of custom wads.
I'm willing to bet that all owners of this game have a computer (Windows PC, Linux PC, Mac - doesn't matter) that can run Doom I & II and make it look and sound much better.

Note that this game is published by Bethesda, and not developed by their developer studio that made the Elder Scrolls and Fallout 3. This game was developed by id Software. That's just sad.

 

[Poetic Nova]

Bethesda, the only gaming company that can break the most simple things in games, was looking forward to the BFG edition but I'll pass.

Double Post.

Is playing from the disk really that bad?
I mean, I never installed a game on the harddisk, besides Battlefield 3.

Now, how much better would installing games be for my console, or performance for that matter?

Is it just loading times, or will I see some improvements in other areas as well?

You shorten the lifespan of the X360 if you don't install games on the harddisk.