Microsoft Drops Fees For Patching Xbox 360 Titles

[SonOfVoorhees]

Pity. Because now theres no fee we will get even more buggy games being released under the "Screw it, we can patch that after its launched" mentality. Does that mean we are going to get more crap like Simcity? Still unplayable after multiple patches. What a joke.

Thing is people will use it to bash MS. Pathetic really. I think the future of consoles is more buggy games, that really should never have been released in the first place. If you are charging £55 a game (XBone and PS4) then i expect zero bugs or freezes or core game mechanics not working.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

Ooo, can we have Valve update TF2 and The Orange Box? That'd be incredible.

I want to see this happen. Not because it would get anyone to play the game again or because anyone still cares, but because I support anything that would be a drain on Microsoft's wallet at this point.

There would probably be a limit to how big the patch could be, though. I doubt they would allow something bigger than most entire games to just be dumped onto the game in one fell swoop. Besides, Robin Walker said at one point that even if patches and updates were free on consoles, he wouldn't have pushed the backpack/loadout system because it really can only be used with a mouse-driven interface.

At this point, I'd be satisfied with just fixes for all the bugs and exploits, some of the newer maps, and the balance tweaks like upgradable dispensers and airblast.

 

[ecoho]

Microsoft does reserve the right to charge any developers that it deems to be abusing the system with an overlarge number of updates, but that caveat seems like a legitimate safeguard against abuse than any real effort on Microsoft's part to generate an additional revenue stream for the wealthy-as-god computing giant.

SO no daily patches to fix the latest bugs thus maknig your experience better, only free patch after you already finished the game?

I for one had no problem with the fee, it got developers to get it right the first time rather then selling a broken game and patching it later. As for indie titles not having the money to pay the fee, well the fee should scale on how successful the developer and the game are but they should not be given special treatment because they have less money, there is no excuse for shipping a broken game.

no amount of testing can find everything. people find flaws in games 3 years after their release. i agree that the game shoudl work (no gmaebreaking bugs) and the less annoying bugs the better, but the complexity of agames nowadays mean 0 bugsi s pretty much impossible. all it does is make us not able to get them fixed.
however the trend nowadays is to fire your quality assurance department, call it "open beta" and let community bug-hunt for you. you dont have to pay them either and in some cases they even pay you for it.

ok let me put it to you this way, that fee was probably why the 360 version of skyrim didn't have the same problems the ps3 one did. See why patching is useful, hell even great, on PC its not so much on consoles due to the lack of modders, and accessibility to code.

 

[Atmos Duality]

This needed to happen like 4-5 years ago. (same thing I maintain with Sony and Nintendo too)
Today, it's little more than a token gesture meant to drum up good PR in a time when M$ needs it the most.

They've only rescinded this cost because their favoritism for AAA is looking shakier every year, and Microoft already lost out on their last big power play to fix that.

 

[soren7550]

Ooo, can we have Valve update TF2 and The Orange Box? That'd be incredible.

I was just about to say the same thing. While some of the bugs in TF2 were fun (such as super jumps across the map), most weren't fun (your team spawning NPC mates that don't do anything) or were weird (playing on the beach from Half Life 2 while there's a ridged Red Spy riding the Pyro's flamethrower like a broom).

 

[Strazdas]

ok let me put it to you this way, that fee was probably why the 360 version of skyrim didn't have the same problems the ps3 one did. See why patching is useful, hell even great, on PC its not so much on consoles due to the lack of modders, and accessibility to code.

I see your point and disagree with it, but you picked an awful example, because skyrim on PS3 was known to be buggy speciically for Bethesda not knowing how to program for PS3 properly, seeing as their main attention was on PC architecture and 360 didnt suffer since 360 architecture was relatively similar (compared to PS3 and Wii, 360 was a small PC)
Now about your point: how does needing to pay for patching cause better quality? the need to launch better so you need less patches? does nto work on games ported to consoles, does not work due to lower bugtesting we see nowadays and rushed schedules. very few companies can apply this. now on the other hand not being able to patch your game due to fee resulting in worse experience - we saw a lot if that.

 

[ecoho]

ok let me put it to you this way, that fee was probably why the 360 version of skyrim didn't have the same problems the ps3 one did. See why patching is useful, hell even great, on PC its not so much on consoles due to the lack of modders, and accessibility to code.

I see your point and disagree with it, but you picked an awful example, because skyrim on PS3 was known to be buggy speciically for Bethesda not knowing how to program for PS3 properly, seeing as their main attention was on PC architecture and 360 didnt suffer since 360 architecture was relatively similar (compared to PS3 and Wii, 360 was a small PC)
Now about your point: how does needing to pay for patching cause better quality? the need to launch better so you need less patches? does nto work on games ported to consoles, does not work due to lower bugtesting we see nowadays and rushed schedules. very few companies can apply this. now on the other hand not being able to patch your game due to fee resulting in worse experience - we saw a lot if that.

see the problem with your statement is "porting to consoles" sorry but as things stand now(and this could change soon)most games are developed for consoles first and as such any game developer whos too cheap or too lazy to put out a finished game should pay for having to fix the bloody thing. If more consoles did this then we wouldn't be getting so many games with game breaking bugs (Im looking at you Bethesda) that don't get fix till 2 weeks after the fact. Finish the game right or pay for it is a great idea and should be encouraged.

 

[Zeckt]

I am probably one of the most vocal 360 haters on this site, so I will grunt in agreement to this. Still, it should of never been there to begin with and no matter what microsoft does I can never forgive them after the hardware failures of the 360.

 

[Strazdas]

ok let me put it to you this way, that fee was probably why the 360 version of skyrim didn't have the same problems the ps3 one did. See why patching is useful, hell even great, on PC its not so much on consoles due to the lack of modders, and accessibility to code.

I see your point and disagree with it, but you picked an awful example, because skyrim on PS3 was known to be buggy speciically for Bethesda not knowing how to program for PS3 properly, seeing as their main attention was on PC architecture and 360 didnt suffer since 360 architecture was relatively similar (compared to PS3 and Wii, 360 was a small PC)
Now about your point: how does needing to pay for patching cause better quality? the need to launch better so you need less patches? does nto work on games ported to consoles, does not work due to lower bugtesting we see nowadays and rushed schedules. very few companies can apply this. now on the other hand not being able to patch your game due to fee resulting in worse experience - we saw a lot if that.

see the problem with your statement is "porting to consoles" sorry but as things stand now(and this could change soon)most games are developed for consoles first and as such any game developer whos too cheap or too lazy to put out a finished game should pay for having to fix the bloody thing. If more consoles did this then we wouldn't be getting so many games with game breaking bugs (Im looking at you Bethesda) that don't get fix till 2 weeks after the fact. Finish the game right or pay for it is a great idea and should be encouraged.

Yes, nowadays great many games are developed for consoles and then ported to PC, this consoles usually have less bugs. not so with Bethesda games though. I would agree that a developer should pay for not releasing a good product. however there is aboslutely no way to enforce that. all this fee does not is make him pay to be actualyl able to help us with the problems.
The whole reason they wait 2 weeks is so they could release a bunch of bugfixes in a bunch so they would have to pay MS less for fixing their own game. if this fee is gone they may release the fix on day-one. the idea is good but it does not work the way you want it to work.

 

[ecoho]

ok let me put it to you this way, that fee was probably why the 360 version of skyrim didn't have the same problems the ps3 one did. See why patching is useful, hell even great, on PC its not so much on consoles due to the lack of modders, and accessibility to code.

I see your point and disagree with it, but you picked an awful example, because skyrim on PS3 was known to be buggy speciically for Bethesda not knowing how to program for PS3 properly, seeing as their main attention was on PC architecture and 360 didnt suffer since 360 architecture was relatively similar (compared to PS3 and Wii, 360 was a small PC)
Now about your point: how does needing to pay for patching cause better quality? the need to launch better so you need less patches? does nto work on games ported to consoles, does not work due to lower bugtesting we see nowadays and rushed schedules. very few companies can apply this. now on the other hand not being able to patch your game due to fee resulting in worse experience - we saw a lot if that.

see the problem with your statement is "porting to consoles" sorry but as things stand now(and this could change soon)most games are developed for consoles first and as such any game developer whos too cheap or too lazy to put out a finished game should pay for having to fix the bloody thing. If more consoles did this then we wouldn't be getting so many games with game breaking bugs (Im looking at you Bethesda) that don't get fix till 2 weeks after the fact. Finish the game right or pay for it is a great idea and should be encouraged.

Yes, nowadays great many games are developed for consoles and then ported to PC, this consoles usually have less bugs. not so with Bethesda games though. I would agree that a developer should pay for not releasing a good product. however there is aboslutely no way to enforce that. all this fee does not is make him pay to be actualyl able to help us with the problems.
The whole reason they wait 2 weeks is so they could release a bunch of bugfixes in a bunch so they would have to pay MS less for fixing their own game. if this fee is gone they may release the fix on day-one. the idea is good but it does not work the way you want it to work.

im sorry but got to keep coming back to the whole ps3 skyrim debocal as they knew about the problem day one and didn't release their first patch till 2 weeks after the fact. Now don't give me the whole you cant fix something like that day one speech as the last of us pulled this off within 3 days of it coming out.

Now on to the rest yes Bethesda releases most of its games as PC ported to consoles but other developers don't and as such you tend to see less game breaking bugs from those companies because it does the one thing they fear, effect their bottom line. Now I don't give a pass to Bethesda (im rather pissed at them for releasing flat out broken games and just patching away the problems) but at least with them its more they don't understand consoles but with this fee gone its gonna be
" We can release this game now but its going to have this many bugs sir"
" that's fine well patch it day one and fix 1 or 2 then release a dlc pack that fixes the game for 5 bucks next week"

and don't say it wont because,and I think many will agree with me, both EA and activision are that greedy.

 

[Strazdas]

im sorry but got to keep coming back to the whole ps3 skyrim debocal as they knew about the problem day one and didn't release their first patch till 2 weeks after the fact. Now don't give me the whole you cant fix something like that day one speech as the last of us pulled this off within 3 days of it coming out.

Now on to the rest yes Bethesda releases most of its games as PC ported to consoles but other developers don't and as such you tend to see less game breaking bugs from those companies because it does the one thing they fear, effect their bottom line. Now I don't give a pass to Bethesda (im rather pissed at them for releasing flat out broken games and just patching away the problems) but at least with them its more they don't understand consoles but with this fee gone its gonna be
" We can release this game now but its going to have this many bugs sir"
" that's fine well patch it day one and fix 1 or 2 then release a dlc pack that fixes the game for 5 bucks next week"

and don't say it wont because,and I think many will agree with me, both EA and activision are that greedy.

No. what im arguing entirely is not that you cant fix it day one, you can. its that you cant afford to fix stuff every day with patch fees. basically your whole anger with PS3 skyrim was the fault of patch fees.
but it still was the same logic, except that they instead of releasing fix 1 fix 2 and so on would wait 2 weks ad release fix 1-10 since it would cst them less.
Bethesda has a problem with its bugs, but i partialy forgive them because noone else creates a game with so many entangled relationships within a game. and to avoid bugs with so much programming to do depending on so many factors is harder thna a regular COD train ride shooter.