From the Magic Box a few days ago:
Do you see this as a good thing or a bad thing?
In some ways it's good, it fixes the problems with a major part of the XBox version, the Live part, and gives the consumer the full product as it should have been, Capcom have done something about it, and that's fine... but I see it as a very bad thing in the bigger picture/longer term.
In the beginning during the development phase, surely Capcom should have tested the game properly to make sure it would run correctly over an online server. Of course, you can't test every single variable with something as wide as online gaming, but there are a considerably large number of people complaining about problems necessitating this patch, so surely this shouldn't have even needed fixing in the first place.
But what effect will it have on the wider development community as far as XBox is currently, and future consoles and online strategies? I think it could be a very bad thing as far as rushing product out of the door for release before it's been properly bug-tested. The PC gaming industry is full of things like this, where it's often quite rare to see a game actually released bug-free. Of course, apart from lazy coding, bugs can be a lot to do with differing hardware and this is something that's often out of the control of developers as, like I said, you can't test every variable with something like that.
However, with a medium like consoles I think it will just promote laziness within the development community as, instead of missing your pay that month and having to bug-fix, devcos could just release 'on time', take the money, then worry about the patch later. Well within the console industry this just plain isn't on. With the more powerful hardware of recent years there has been a very small increase in the release of bugged software, but it's very negligible, and things like this escape through the net.
But with what could possibly become an increasingly patch-oriented industry, I think it's possible that segregation will occur, and it'll become like the PC gaming industry where it's no longer the plug-and-play friendliness of consoles, but more having to buy the game, go home, get online, and then download a big patch in order to play. I see it as becoming not only something that fixes the online side like this patch release does, but something that could affect the single-player offline aspects of console games as well. This means that consumers could end up buying software that's bugged, and then not being able to get the fixed version because they're not online, or having to go through the whole rubbish of downloading patches for their software.
That is no fun, as any but the more dedicated PC gamer will confirm.
I don't want to see it happen to the console industry and it should be stopped now before it grows into the ugly patch-heavy monster that the PC gaming industry has become. And what of the consoles that don't currently have a wide and relatively well-known online strategy like GameCube and PS2? With games being converted often across the board on two or three consoles, the bugs will surely exist in all versions. What happens then when you have one version (XBox) with a relatively easily accessible patch available, compared to one or two other versions that will remain bugged?
Any opinions?
- Capcom announced they will release an update patch for Capcom Vs SNK EO for Xbox, which fixes a number of flaws in the game, when playing over the Xbox Live server, problems such as choppy sounds and missing music after the system is connected to the server.
In some ways it's good, it fixes the problems with a major part of the XBox version, the Live part, and gives the consumer the full product as it should have been, Capcom have done something about it, and that's fine... but I see it as a very bad thing in the bigger picture/longer term.
In the beginning during the development phase, surely Capcom should have tested the game properly to make sure it would run correctly over an online server. Of course, you can't test every single variable with something as wide as online gaming, but there are a considerably large number of people complaining about problems necessitating this patch, so surely this shouldn't have even needed fixing in the first place.
But what effect will it have on the wider development community as far as XBox is currently, and future consoles and online strategies? I think it could be a very bad thing as far as rushing product out of the door for release before it's been properly bug-tested. The PC gaming industry is full of things like this, where it's often quite rare to see a game actually released bug-free. Of course, apart from lazy coding, bugs can be a lot to do with differing hardware and this is something that's often out of the control of developers as, like I said, you can't test every variable with something like that.
However, with a medium like consoles I think it will just promote laziness within the development community as, instead of missing your pay that month and having to bug-fix, devcos could just release 'on time', take the money, then worry about the patch later. Well within the console industry this just plain isn't on. With the more powerful hardware of recent years there has been a very small increase in the release of bugged software, but it's very negligible, and things like this escape through the net.
But with what could possibly become an increasingly patch-oriented industry, I think it's possible that segregation will occur, and it'll become like the PC gaming industry where it's no longer the plug-and-play friendliness of consoles, but more having to buy the game, go home, get online, and then download a big patch in order to play. I see it as becoming not only something that fixes the online side like this patch release does, but something that could affect the single-player offline aspects of console games as well. This means that consumers could end up buying software that's bugged, and then not being able to get the fixed version because they're not online, or having to go through the whole rubbish of downloading patches for their software.
That is no fun, as any but the more dedicated PC gamer will confirm.
I don't want to see it happen to the console industry and it should be stopped now before it grows into the ugly patch-heavy monster that the PC gaming industry has become. And what of the consoles that don't currently have a wide and relatively well-known online strategy like GameCube and PS2? With games being converted often across the board on two or three consoles, the bugs will surely exist in all versions. What happens then when you have one version (XBox) with a relatively easily accessible patch available, compared to one or two other versions that will remain bugged?
Any opinions?
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