Future of PS3 Skyrim DLC Uncertain

[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.

 

[Megacherv]

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.

I'd love to, I just don't know the actual language yet, but I know the design for it.

 

[WeAreJimbo]

One user recently asked whether Dawnguard is actually playable in its current state on the PS3, and Hines responded: "yes, it just doesn't perform well in all scenarios. Some folks would be fine, some would not." It seems odd that the DLC would work properly for some and not for others, but apparently the uncertainty could stem from the game's save system, with Hines saying simply "every save game is different" when pushed for further comment.

Reading between the lines I think what he is saying is "we tried it and it sort of works, but we can't be bothered to do a full PS3 port."

I only have 23 years experience as a software developer, but surely every save file is different on PC and XBox 360 not just on PS3. As a s/w dev I know it is often better to throw away the code and start again from scratch rather than try to patch up a buggy mess. In the case of Skyrim on PS3, they should probably do just that and release a GOTY edition for PS4 when it releases rather than string along the PS3 Skyrim owners like this.

 

[shemoanscazrex3]

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.

Its not their fault you bought a system, and then bought a game for a system that is the hardest to develop for, the least profitable of the three systems this generation (meaning not many multi-platform devs are motivated to help it), and is inherently flawed in its design that is now causing the issues you're having with the game.

If you want to be pissed at anyone, be pissed at Sony for designing an inherently flawed product. Because this is almost 100% likely related to how badly the PS3 handles RAM and CPU usage.

This would make sense if everyone else sucked at developing for Sony. It is their fault that they released a buggy game, then a DLC while not fixing buggy game and then working on another DLC while still not fixing the first problem

Almost every developer who develops for more than one platform will tell you that the PS3 is incredibly hard to work with, un-intuitive, and generally, unless you make the PS3 your lead or only platform, the PS3 version of your product will be inferior to the other versions.

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.

Like for instance, the PS3 is actually incapable of having Private/Party Chat during a game like the 360 is, because of how it allocates RAM - its a rather long winded technical explanation (I think the best explanation was on PC Gamer and Kotaku, but the article was a couple of years ago), but the Cliffnotes version is that while the 360 has less RAM than the PS3, it doesn't place any restrictions on how its used; while the PS3 has built-in caps on how much can be used and when, and by what type of software, and it saves that for use even if that software/program isn't being used.

So while its possible for great games to come out on PS3, in order for it to happen the PS3 has to be your focus - which, with it being the least profitable and hardest system to use, isn't terribly appealing to developers.

While this may be true although they seem to play identical to me none of these games have game breaking bugs like not being able to defeat a boss that would progress the story. So yeah the PS3 is harder to develop for but no one is releasing bug riddle games especially bugs that are game breaking