Future of PS3 Skyrim DLC Uncertain

[squ1re]

As disappointed to hear it as I am, this is exactly what I wanted. Just a heartfelt update. Bethesda, thank you.

 

[DRes82]

I don't think he means it would work some people and not others, just that some people would find the lag
http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8ofxxJRRz1qg1uns.gif

Is it weird that I can hear lemongrab's voice everytime your gif plays?

 

[The_Shinigamer]

Fact is, Bethesda can't release a game that works anywhere. PC, if you have to mod it to make it work your game is crap. Consoles, if you need day 1 or week 1 patches game=crap. As much as I have previously loved Elder Scrolls they keep getting simpler, tamer and smaller feeling with more and more game breaking and fun killing glitches. The only reason I'll be getting Dishonored is Arkane's cumulative track record and the fact Bethesda's almost 100% hands-off. Count it guys, Brink-Rage-Skyrim. Bethesda's going downhill even if everyone will still buy everything they make forever.

 

[infinity_turtles]

Bethesda made something that doesn't work for PS3? I suppose this is only news since they're not releasing it anyway claiming they totally care about the PS3.

 

[KoudelkaMorgan]

Hopefully Microsoft will get the point and stop paying them for timed exclusivity on DLC. Its just wasted money at this point.

Alternatively they should reward Bethesda's incompetence by paying them MORE to stop working on fixing the issue.

Sony couldn't give a shit either way I'm sure, and if they spend a dime on Bethesda to assist with this then, wow, they got trolled hardcore.

Nintendo continues to trip on shroomz, unconcerned with the petty affairs of this console generation.

Since it may not be readily apparent I own a PS3 and Wii. People seem to enjoy painting me as an Xbot just because I usually have nothing to say about my PS3. I'm equally disappointed with all 3 consoles thank you

 

[NEDM]

They'll have it up and running, just as soon as they are done putting these out for microsoft. You know, the same way they did with Oblivion, and fallout 3.


The big loser in all of this is microsoft who paid untold cash to keep them from putting it on the ps3 to begin with. So if bethesda is just incompotent, and not bought and paid for, then Microsoft should get a refund on that bribe.

 

[nathan-dts]

This is incredibly pathetic from Bethesda, they are about the only company now who can't seem to make games on the PS3 work properly. They've had more than enough time to fucking figure it out by now.

Sheesh.

Valve sorted their shit, and so should Bethesda. Hire someone that knows what they're doing.

 

[chadachada123]

It is possible that the PS3's handling of memory just isn't well-workable for the engine that Bethesda built, and wouldn't be fixable without completely rebuilding or otherwise tearing apart the engine specifically to build it towards the PS3, which at this point wouldn't make much sense.

Frankly, I don't think that they should have released on the PS3 with these issues to begin with, as I would implore another company to do if their game absolutely sucked on half of the 360s but worked fine on PS3. There's no shame in admitting that certain hardware is damn-near unplayable with their current engine, and that it isn't financially wise to put all the effort just to make "HURR EVERYONE EQUAL." Newsflash: All systems aren't equal.

 

[Royas]

I'd say that Bethesda needs to halt any and all future PS3 development. It's pretty clear that they just can't get it right. Given the problems Skyrim has had on the PS3 from the start, it should never have seen the light of day. Pretty sad state of affairs that they can't get their game to work on this one console. Doesn't really inspire confidence for the future, and I would be surprised if any Playstation owner would be dumb enough to buy any more of their games, ever.

 

[Proverbial Jon]

I'm not an electronics expert but I always believed the PS3 to have the superior hardware when compared to the 360. The way I understand it, it's got something to do with the internal structure of the machine which makes it a completely different beast. Seems like it's power was built for flash and not substance.

Hey, if Beths hates money...that's their issue.

Skyrim taught me to never by a Beths game new.

From now on, if I buy one of their games, I'm doing so used.
I'd rather GAMESTOP get my money their these guys.

I'm sure this must make you feel like some sort of moral crusader for video game justice but in truth you're simply funding the sharks who feed on ill gotten gains, money from that honest developer's hard work. I don't know what Skyrim has done to you personally but if you truly feel that strongly and want to boycott a game dev, do it properly by not buying the game at all, don't hide behind some skewed conception of morality.

 

[Zeckt]

As much as I feel bad about the ps3 owners who bought skyrim for their system of choice, I can't help but feel that sony is getting their deserved punishment for trying to make their system a unique and beautiful butterfly by making their console so complicated to develop for by being a very distant fourth. I won't even pay attention to sony's next console offering.

 

[Stalydan]

What baffles me, is that they developed an entire game (and not a small one at that) on PS3, but DLC is just too much? Really? To me it seems like they wanted to get the game on PS3, naturally to get more sales, but any additional effort is not worth it to them. Why have teams to develop for the PS3, when you've already sold the main product?

I'm sorry, but this is how all this comes across to me at the moment.

Well, Skyrim alreay had severe problems on the PS3 without any DLC (most likely due to the PS3's tiny amount of RAM), I suppose adding any more to the game will make it even harder to run properly.

I find it more pathetic if anything that pretty much every other game developer can make PS3 titles with little-to-no problems yet Bethesda is the only one who can't. There's no excuse now to not be able to develop games on it with this many bugs considering how long the system has been out for.

I respect them for being open about their problems but they've got no excuses for them when they've had this long to work on them.

 

[Sucal]

I'm not an electronics expert but I always believed the PS3 to have the superior hardware when compared to the 360. The way I understand it, it's got something to do with the internal structure of the machine which makes it a completely different beast. Seems like it's power was built for flash and not substance.

Sony has better Hardware, but their software sucks balls. Deliberately restrictive (Vita Memory Card lock), constantly removing features (Linux), and rather illogical memory allocation issues.

Edit: And to everyone else complaining. Please share with us your mystical method of doubling the amount of RAM using only software techniques.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

Some examples include: Bayonetta, all the most recent Tom Clancy games, Oblivion, Skyrim, Arkham Aslyum and City, Mass Effect 2 and 3, Black Ops I etc. All of these games actually look or play better on their 360 and PC counterparts, all due to how the PS3 works compared to the rest of the gaming world.

Regardless of how well they look or play, as far I know all of these games actually function well on PS3. Bayonetta, Black Ops, Arkham Asylum/City I know for a fact play with no game breaking issues. Oblivion suffers from the same problem as the PC and 360 versions, which is that Bethesda just never bothered to patch a lot of problems before releasing a GOTY edition. As for how they look, the gap between the PS3 and 360 is negligible.

The fact of the matter here is that Skyrim is broken on the PS3. Its not a minor graphical difference or a slightly lower frame rate, the save feature is fundamentally broken. You can't put that down to the PS3's hardware alone. When developing for the PS3 they already knew this problem existed, because it was present in Fallout New Vegas. To some degree there are fundamental problems with the way their games handle saves, as I've found on the PC versions of Oblivion, Fallout 3 and New Vegas.

Now I'm not going to try and say what Bethesda should do, this doesn't even affect me because I play on PC, because that would imply that I had some knowledge as to how Skyrim handles the hardware on the PS3. But if they really wanted to put it on the PS3 to begin with then they should have sorted this out before it shipped. Yes developers whine about the PS3's hardware, but I don't see anyone else putting out a game that they knew wouldn't agree with it.

 

[wrightguy0]

I think this is bullshit, has anyone else noticed that bethesda hasn't said what's wrong with the DLC? From the sound of things they know exactly what's wrong with it, and if it's the PS3's memory storage issues, then they've fixed it before, multiple times, over half a fucking decade, Seriously, they've encountered this problem before, to not have a working fix is inexcusable.

"We have tried a number of things," he wrote, "but none of them solve the issue enough to make Dawnguard good for everyone." The team can't afford to put their entire resources into just the one patch, either, as work is also underway on Hearthfire. Due to so many new assets being added all at once, "the issues of adding content get even more complicated."

I don't understand why they just can't delay hearthfire either, to say "Hey guys, we're really sorry we haven't got that content you really wanted to use to work yet, but we just can't afford to make it work right now because we're working on more new content for the other guys that you won't be seeing until we fix the problems with our first batch of content" Is really insulting, Bethesda are just rubbing salt in the wound, now doesn't anyone think they should be making fixing the DLC issues their top priority before they work on the next one?

or am i the last sane man on earth in that regard?

 

[insanelich]

or am i the last sane man on earth in that regard?

I don't think it qualifies you as saner than anyone else to say Bethesda should prioritize DLC that takes a massive amount of work that they - and I emphasize this - have not sold yet over DLC that will be both functional and guaranteed income.

Sony is not a stranger to "hilarious" software/hardware "features", and I have no doubt that blame for this is entirely theirs. The studios that have no problems developing for PS3 usually don't make massive sandbox games in the scale of Skyrim.

Adding Dawnguard to Skyrim may just be too much for the PS3 to handle - which is precisely what Bethesda said. And if it is so, they won't sell Dawnguard for PS3. They didn't advertise Dawnguard while selling Skyrim, and thus have no commitment to making it available on the PS3.

tl;dr You can't get ye game.

 

[Woodsey]

Surely this means that they should fix their fucking save system then. You should always develop for the lowest spec platform and in this case the PS3 is the lowest due to the shortage of RAM. LBP and LBP2 don't use the Save Data folder, they use the Game Data folder. They could use that, and have different save directories for each character, and have the save file then broken down by region or town. Then when a character is loaded up you load up their character file and the file for the region they were last in (information which is saved for that character). When you come near another region, you load up the relevant save for that region as it's loaded. When you leave a region or it comes out of scope of the game, you save that file then drop it from memory.

Sounds like you'd better shoot them an email and a job application.

OT: Shit situation, but at least they're being honest about it.

 

[maxben]

Well, damn.

I don't have a PS3, but this still bugs me. I've tried to stand up for Beth throughout their PS3 woes, but I think it's getting to the point that PS3 owners have a right to be annoyed at this.

For the company to come out and say they may never get the Expansion on PS3 is, frankly, bothersome. Delayed is one thing. Not coming out at all?

Kind of bullshit.

Figure it out Bethesda, you owe your customers that.

Do they? Was this DLC supposed to be free? No? Did users already pay for it? No? Then they do not owe anyone anything. If someone was only willing to plunk down $60 for a game because they expected to be able to plunk down more money later for a few extra features that hadn't even been announced yet, that's their own stupid problem. It's not even like it's an incomplete game without them, unlike say Mass Effect 3 or the Half-Life series...

That said, it's a pretty epic fail on Bethesda's part to somehow create a version of their game that wasn't compatible with its own add-on system, or whatever their excuse translates to in normal-people speak. And the PS3 is supposed to be one of their main platforms; it's not even like they have the excuse that they're used to only programming for the Xbox or PC. Not a good sign if any third-party developer was looking at licensing the Creation Engine for their own open-world game.

The problem is that it creates an inappropriate disparity between the systems. Imagine this scenario: A company releases a game on PC, Wii, PS3, and Xbox, and then decides that ONLY Xbox will receive DLCs and content patching (as opposed to bug patching which they obviously owe everyone). That would hardly be ok. Now lets add a second part to that, they didnt tell you which system they will add DLCs and content patches to so when you purchase the game its plain luck whether you will buy a game that will be added to or not. Its at this point that it becomes unacceptable.
If its ok for you, than thats fine. But surely you can see where I'd be pissed under such a scenario (which may seem like a straw man but is not because its the consequence of your argument).

 

[Epona]

As much as I feel bad about the ps3 owners who bought skyrim for their system of choice, I can't help but feel that sony is getting their deserved punishment for trying to make their system a unique and beautiful butterfly by making their console so complicated to develop for by being a very distant fourth. I won't even pay attention to sony's next console offering.

LOL, you are blaming Sony?

From what I understand, the PS2 was a ***** to develop for too. Plenty of developers managed to pull it off though. This is on Bethesda being up Microsoft's ass and not writing their engine to accommodate all the target hardware.

 

[Epona]

I'm not an electronics expert but I always believed the PS3 to have the superior hardware when compared to the 360. The way I understand it, it's got something to do with the internal structure of the machine which makes it a completely different beast. Seems like it's power was built for flash and not substance.

Sony has better Hardware, but their software sucks balls. Deliberately restrictive (Vita Memory Card lock), constantly removing features (Linux), and rather illogical memory allocation issues.

Edit: And to everyone else complaining. Please share with us your mystical method of doubling the amount of RAM using only software techniques.

A very old concept, virtual memory. It's using the HDD together with the RAM. It's not as fast as running completely from RAM but it would still work. All PS3's have a HDD.