Goafer Posted March 9, 2014 Share Posted March 9, 2014 I was listening to the Two Best Friendscast and they had a really good and slightly worrying point about PS3/Xbox games and their retro potential. Sony and Microsoft aren't going to host the updates and patches forever, so we'll be stuck with day 1 versions, which in a lot of cases are unplayable or have game breaking bugs. I guess they could be obtained and installed by other methods, but only if people think to upload them somewhere and give instructions on how to install them. Bit of a faff though and basically makes retro gaming for the 360/PS3 generation into homebrew. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Serebii Posted March 9, 2014 Share Posted March 9, 2014 (edited) Yeah, I've been thinking about that lately too. Was even going to make a thread about it. Especially as patches are getting bigger (Dead Rising 3 of 16GB, Titanfall of just under 1GB on launch day), people will have to start having to delete them to make room for others, even more so now as installation is mandatory. The trend towards rushing games out with the belief they can just patch issues out for launch and/or later is terrifying. Launch day buyers have started to become beta testers, and considering most games get the vast majority of sales in their first few weeks, it's a horrible situation. You would think developers would want their games to be remembered fondly in times to come. Is the aim not to have the next Super Mario World, or Chrono Trigger, or Golden Axe? Classic games that stand the test of time. However, with missing patches, that will not be the case. Edited March 9, 2014 by Serebii Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheikah Posted March 9, 2014 Share Posted March 9, 2014 (edited) I was listening to the Two Best Friendscast and they had a really good and slightly worrying point about PS3/Xbox games and their retro potential. Sony and Microsoft aren't going to host the updates and patches forever, so we'll be stuck with day 1 versions, which in a lot of cases are unplayable or have game breaking bugs. I guess they could be obtained and installed by other methods, but only if people think to upload them somewhere and give instructions on how to install them. Bit of a faff though and basically makes retro gaming for the 360/PS3 generation into homebrew. A more positive way of thinking about it is that games of the past never had patches, so could be buggered in certain areas from the off. :p I remember Harvest Moon BTN PAL version on PS1 had a killer glitch that caused your game to permenantly freeze after you got married. And since you had saved several times since the day you agreed to marry, you were essentially locked into an impending doom. Sad times. Really though, patches are still doable via other methods even if it's more hassle and there are very few games I think that are ridiculously broken/unenjoyable without a patch. Saying that, I think with the PlayStation Now service Sony are clearly gearing to offer an up to date retro library via other means (just like how HD remakes substituted PS2 backwards compatibility on PS3), so it wouldn't surprise me if patches were dropped sooner rather than later. The trend towards rushing games out with the belief they can just patch issues out for launch and/or later is terrifying. Launch day buyers have started to become beta testers, and considering most games get the vast majority of sales in their first few weeks, it's a horrible situation. You would think developers would want their games to be remembered fondly in times to come. Is the aim not to have the next Super Mario World, or Chrono Trigger, or Golden Axe? Classic games that stand the test of time. However, with missing patches, that will not be the case. I'm not sure this is necessarily true all the time. I think games of the past could be pretty broken/unbalanced in many areas, but there was just no way of fixing it. The games you mentioned were undeniably good quality, but there are also such examples in this day and age. Although on the other side... you only need to look at games such as Fallout or Elder Scrolls to see the complexity of games has skyrocketed, so it's more likely shit could wrong and need patching. Edited March 9, 2014 by Sheikah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goafer Posted March 9, 2014 Author Share Posted March 9, 2014 Although on the other side... you only need to look at games such as Fallout or Elder Scrolls to see the complexity of games has skyrocketed, so it's more likely shit could wrong and need patching. Those are exactly the games I'm talking about. They're amazing games when patched, but buggy and a bit crap in their launch state. Future retro gamers will have to either find the GOTY editions that come patched IIRC or find a patch online and install it the hard way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Bard Posted March 9, 2014 Share Posted March 9, 2014 Planned obsolescence? It'll likely force you to buy these games again further down the line when they become available as part of a virtual console type platform on future consoles or as remastered HD versions. The thing with some of the games you mentioned, and with a lot of games that do well commercially or critically is that they're released as part of a GOTY pack a year down the line with the initial patches included in the hard copy. Doesn't apply to all games obviously, but I hope Microsony have some sort of contingencies in place to deal with this sort of thing, or maybe we'll only be able to play old 360/PS3 games on modded consoles that can access updates and patches hosted on third party servers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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