You're missing the point a bit.

You said consoles can't use thousands of pieces of hardware as an excuse for bugs.

I said that not all bugs are caused by hardware incompatibilities.

Now you say that most of the serious ones are.

This is where I say, look at the list of bugs that they fixed in Burnout Paradise, and show me the bug that is the result of a hardware incompatibility.

The controller ones are iffy. But the rest seem to be either genuine non hardware related bugs, or 'features' that were undesirable (the head on takedowns for example).

My point is, even though the console doesn't have the excuse of having to support thousands of different hardware configurations, there's still plenty of other types of bugs to screw up a game.

At least now those sorts of bugs can get patched.

/got stuck in a wall in super mario brothers
/got stuck in a wall in zelda 2
/in both cases, I was doing something I probably shouldn't have been :P

lordargent

TechnoDestructo

Rebelphoenix83

Not all bugs in games are the result of hardware.

lordargent

Replica23

The next patch for Burnout is going to add some seriously cool new features to the game for free. That is nothing but good to me.

Yeah, I'm fine with games getting patched. In the past, when a game was released, if there was a bug, you were SOL. And no new features would ever be added. Now, all of this is possible due to online patches. Awesome, I say.

Rectangle

All I've been playing lately is the Orange Box and Diablo II, and patches for those don't even take a couple of button presses.

TechnoDestructo

To say that a game is broken on a console, just because it comes out with a patch later, is inaccurate. The patch enhances the game, but it certainly does not mean the game was unplayable and broken beforehand.

Just look at the list of bugs they fixed. Where do you see any showstoppers?

baccardi84

Consoles don't have the excuse of having to account for a thousand different pieces of hardware with 3 or 4 times as many drivers.

@Masamuru123:

Crysis sucks. I don't know of any others offhand that fit that description right now.

@Rectangle:

No, it isn't. But would you care to know how many patches I had to download for my PS2...or how many times I wished there WERE a patch for something on the PS2? Zero. The only serious bug I ever inadvertently encountered on a console was the "Relm bug" in FFIII/VI (and that one was actually kind of cool). Any other glitches I've encountered have been a result of hardware failure, or scratches.

Ever since VGA became common on PCs, consoles have had two major advantages over PCs. Price (an advantage that has only narrowed over the years, particularly when a new generation of consoles are first introduced), and the fact that the games can be bug-free, or nearly so...that they JUST WORK.

The X-box got the ball rolling on ending that second advantage, and now the 360 continues to lead the charge to bring the disadvantages of PC gaming to consoles.

AND YOU PEOPLE ARE OKAY WITH THIS?

TechnoDestructo

Oh sod off.
Yeha you can have opinions but if you think that nothing good has come outta console gaming and that patches are a bad thing then sod off and die with your PC games that can only be run by 2 grand computers.

Masamuru123

Updating a game on a console is a whole different experience on the PC. You shouldn't have to on either system, but at least with consoles the updating experience is streamlined to a few presses of a button. I've played recent PC games that needed a patch to fix the in-game patching system that's supposed to make it similar to the console experience.

mugido

Rectangle

cudthecrud

It'd be super easy to keep a patch server online. That's the kind of thing the fan community could do - if they were allowed. How GUARANTEED is it? For how long? I hate to sound alarmist, but it's looking more and more like video game history will effectively end by 2015. Old games will only be playable on systems that got them patched back when they were still popular, or downloaded them in the same time frame and don't require authentication. Either that, or we'll just have to wait and rebuy them on every new system that comes by in order to keep playing them. If you want to describe a game to someone after its time is up, you'll have to use videos (probably shot on a camera due to HDCP and the like) or just show them the unpatched version with all the issues that were fixed after it shipped.

And as always, there's an exception for pirates as they have a nice way of stripping crap out and making things usable. I can afford to buy games now so I like to, but I've skipped some that will be unusable down the road (Echochrome USA), and bought some that I shouldn't have due to DRM (Bioshock PC).

fuchikoma

jwhall

Also... don't know how many times it has to be said.. how about a "RESTART RACE" option.

This.

humperdinck

But it wouldn't matter anyway since once the current consoles are dead, you wouldn't be able to play these games online.

But the patches, that's easy. Like ZeroBlitz said. How hard is it really to keep a server up with the patches?

According to wikipedia, there are 948 original xbox games. Let's ridiculously assume that every game available has 1GB worth of patches and content. That adds up to just shy of 1 TB of data.

1TB hard drives currently retail for about $200-$250. I'm sure MS can find some space and bandwidth somewhere.

lordargent

Hell, all you have to do is look at the file sizes of your legally obtained NES and SNES roms and compare it to the file sizes of todays games and you can see how much more 'stuff' there is in a given game.

/then again, I have a 4GB quake 2 install thanks to a few hundred downloaded maps.

lordargent

Well, that's one of a long list of my gripes gone.

lordargent

VixDiesel

But once current consoles are dead, you can buy one and some games, and the games are BROKEN. And good luck making the updaters work with an emulator - if the servers even still exist/host the patches.

fuchikoma

crapsh00t

ST19AG_WGreymon

wired_fenix

Do you remember DOA4? I'm telling you right now that game was so broken before patches that it should have warranted a recall. I still can't recommend anyone I know who doesn't have broadband buy a 360 because who the fuck knows which games will actually work on their system.

dowingba

sparksterz (Xfire)

I'm sad they didn't fix the bug where if you tie someone across the finish line, the game slams to a halt and loops the sound buffer as it crashes. That's the one that's hit me the most.

Ah well, I got sick of taking wrong turns and getting lost in free-roam hell so I play other racers now. I even got 50x the gameplay out of the broken Burnout Legends on PSP. :/

fuchikoma

What? Paradise also has (or had?) this glitch? I remember this vividly from Burnout Revenge. Why can't they patch that game?

dowingba

Also... don't know how many times it has to be said.. how about a "RESTART RACE" option. Who cares about a load.. jeez.

MerlynNY

I sure am glad they fixed the in-game voice chat on the 360- that one was nasty.

Xerxes3rd

There are some cases where an extremely obvious bug was missed due to poor bug testing, and a perfect example of this is in Saints Row. When driving along the freeway, there is a good 30% chance that everything in the environment will disappear and your game will hang for a good 3 seconds. Happened to me several times during my playthrough.

How do I know all this? I've worked in QA for 3 major publishers over the years, I currently work at a very respectable American developer. <3 QA.

Tons Of Fun

hollowfreak

1) The kind of bandwidth required to perform these updates (say 100mb approx) will be so miniscule by then that Microsoft/Sony shouldn't have a problem keeping a single server up without affecting their profit.

2) The consoles will be so badly hacked by then that, well, anyone could download whatever updates/mods they want. It wouldn't really profit Microsoft or Sony to continue to protect the consoles when everyone's anticipating the PS5 and Xbox4.

ZeroBlitz

Rectangle

SwedishChef

Black_Ops_19

Lowrent

So yeah. It is fridge-exploding worthy. All bugs that cause a soft or hard lock or other such incredibly detrimental effects on the gameplay experience aren't called "class A" for no reason.

denki

Lizard_King

Seeing how talking at the screen for a discussion isn't that effective...

JKPierce

mossberg

JKPierce

denki

luigilogik

darkandlong

But as for Burnout Paradise: am I the only one who finds the GPS horrible?? They really need to revamp the system. I consider myself a fairly decent and experienced Burnout player, however I find myself really struggling in some races because I'm looking at the GPS systems and trying to figure out what comes next and where to turn etc. and then it's too late and I have crashed. Maybe I just suck lol, but I think it could do with some tuning.

Y2Jason

I can't remember the saying with programming but its something along the lines of "you fix something here and something over there breaks"

As for this generation being "underwhelming", well thats a load of crap in my opinion.

Walker

"Go to the system blade and then select memory. Press Y on the HD symbol and then press X,X,Left Bumper, Right Bumper, X,X. Once you do this a messsage will appear saying: Do you want to perform maintenance on your Xbox 360 storage devices?
Performing this function will also clear any software updates." - teamxbox.com

oman83

if you disable "Hints", then DJ Atomica will shut up for all eternity.

Asbestos_Underwear

enewtabie

What we have here is more Online aspect affecting functionality; problems with drop-outs interfering with game mechanics and stuffs.

JKPierce

With the increase functionality and features that are expected of said development teams, it's almost guaranteed the result will be flawed. Looking at this 'Bogart' update, for example, with the minor 5.1 audio bug. It's only recently that sound really played such a vital role to the experience, so it's not remotely fair to make comparisons with the NES or PlayStation 1 era.

To expect a flawless product with the damning development times and the publishing companies breathing down their backs is ridiculous. Not all titles fit this, of course. But the time should be taken, the respect given for teams that manage a genuinely unique and/or fun experience for the (comparatively) cheap sixty dollars.

JKPierce

Online goes against the standardisation of consoles, with differeing connection speeds, ping rates and VOIP hardware of each user. That sort of thing cant be caught in playtesting. At least this gen we have HDD's to make patching possible and fix these problems.

OtakuPunk

excel_excel

You think the last generation was without bugs???

Lucky you!

At least they can now fix them and not just release a game and forget about it.

will

GAWD, he's annoying.

ShiNZ

Also, you expect your "X(hyphen)box" to last 15 years?

ShiNZ

el_rezzo

Horseflesh

excel_excel

Dyson

Luke Plunkett

If I dig out my X-box 15 years from now, will I be able to play this game without glitches?

Will I be able to find the update files on some classic gaming site, and install them onto my X-box? Or must it be done by whatever automated installer they have, and is it impossible without it?

Because if that's the case, that really sucks.

Why should I buy a console at all, if the games are buggy and require updates like PC games? Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose? I thought standardized hardware was supposed to prevent that?

This console generation has been utterly underwhelming.

TechnoDestructo