Shining Sunshine
Banned
To control storage space usage since 360 doesn't come with an HDD.
If guidelines aren't placed, you would be complaining about how much space patches eat up.
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Skullgirls 360 patch held up due to MSFT patch size limits
- Thread starter Cosmo Clock 21
- Start date
To control storage space usage since 360 doesn't come with an HDD.
If guidelines aren't placed, you would be complaining about how much space patches eat up.
Quadraphonic
Member
Also, bandwidth is far cheaper than people realize nowadays.
LonelyGreyWolf
Banned
It'd be ridiculous if Microsoft could enforce developers to set a price point. Nay, I'm pretty sure Valve could have made it available for 80 MSP.
Clay Davis
Member
that's true.
you're right, but let's look at star wars: force unleashed 2. I recently bought this and noticed there'd an endor dlc available for 80msp. the dlc itself is substantial and lengthy. the same with other dlc I've bought for games that's cost less than 560msp.
I can only assume that microsoft suggested that price to them 4 years ago and they've stuck with it thinking they can't renegotiate or that price means they get a nice stream of income from the dlc that helps to cover costs of putting it on xbox live as well as some additional revenue for their coffers /to produce more dlc.
I guess we'll never really know.
darkblade77
Member
I think the other major exception is when the files are part of an update that adds DLC that MS can put up for sale. Hopefully someone knows more about the process here.
Before anyone gets excited: this has been up since June of last year.
toythatkills
Member
I dunno, to encourage good behaviour? :lol
The fact that after thousands of games there are only a few stories like this suggests that for the most part, there's not really a problem with that limit. There's no question that it's better for the gamer overall to encourage such a limit because you just have to look how much moaning there is over constant massive patches on PS3 games. Obviously once in a while you get a situation like this but even the quotes in the OP make it seem like there's a solution to be found, Microsoft aren't flat-out refusing to play ball or anything. As I said, massive patches should be an exception and not the rule, which seems to be how it is, but equally there should be a way around it in rare cases and it seems like that's the case too.
Yeah but there are other games with patches that exceed 150MB.
True, you make a good point.
darkblade77
Member
Actually, I think there's a decent reason for the silence. I was talking to a MS dev once and asked him if Microsoft gives them any best-practice methods or guidelines on how to develop applications for their system, and he said "Nope, they just throw the documentation manual and kit at you." Which means any information on how to write decent code for the system is essentially internal to companies that have experience doing it.
I think that at this point, most publishers are either well-established enough that they've built up enough internal info about where things do and don't work with approaching a platform holder, or they have enough clout that Microsoft will accommodate/work with them on specific holdups.
If this developer made another game for MS for example, this specific situation doesn't seem like it would ever come up again. This is probably why you don't hear of these incidents often, outside of publishers probably not being willing to allow developers to speak about them.
notworksafe
Member
Good thing I got it on PS3 (and PC soon!)
Shining Sunshine
Banned
I was only explaining the reasoning behind the guideline. I don't believe MS are in the right in any way in this case.
It's originally the lack of standard HDD that caused this in the first place.
The unfortunate reality is that these indie devs would be struggling to complete their games without Microsoft's support. I'm sure they realise there are greener DD pastures.
Edit: Oops, edited wrong post. Fixed.
I see nothing wrong with a disincentive for patches. It forces developers to actually test games better to make sure they are not so broken they need endless patches. A almost 600 meg patch is just ridiculous IMO. To let this pass just encourages the release of broken games that are fixed at a later time. It screws over gamers who have a broken game until a patch comes along.
There is little to no direct evidence that suggests patch disincentivising engenders better testing while there are plenty of examples that suggest they're brick walls for post-release support.
Edit: I'm editing this in so I don't bump the thread and crush the hopes of those expecting an update:
You've missed the point, and that is the very fact there are numerous articles featuring developers lamenting Microsoft's overpriced patching system means it doesn't entirely "forces developers to actually test games better", and even if it did, it's hardly worth the trade-off of discouraging post-release support -- a QA department isn't going to pick up on everything, after all. The irrational fear that if Microsoft were to allow a Steamesque patching system it would deter pre-releasing testing, resulting in games releasing broken and requiring dozens of patches, is unfounded.
darkblade77
Member
Just to give some context here, the 360 version of this game was inferior in load times by a wide margin to the PS3 version. It wasn't broken. The developer didn't have any reason to do this(optimizing the file structure) outside of improving the experience for people playing the game.
Also remember there are release deadlines etc. where publishers will opt to release a game that may underperform but works, regardless of any disincentives the platform holder puts out there, or the developer's desire to have a better-running game out.
Yeah man, making it so you only have to wait a few seconds to patch a game along with making sure the game submitted is actually working from the start is a terrible idea :/
PS3 patch sizes vary so much you have no idea how long you are going to have to wait before you start your game. (Here in the Uk internet fucking blows, in comparison to other countries so I understand this is a varying factor) I would rather have a standard which reduces down time between launching the game and actually start playing it.
Risk Breaker
Member
Butbutbut patches download so fast on Live!!
Cosmo Clock 21
Banned
This notion is pretty much false; the bad publicity from releasing a broken-ass patch is punishment enough. Look at Steam, which charges no fee for patches, yet with a few exceptions games released on Steam don't experience the "endless patches" you describe.
In fact you yourself provide the strongest reason for removing a fee for patching! "It screws over gamers who have a broken game until a patch comes along." Think of Silent Hill HD, think of Fez. Those games are busted forever because their publishers can't afford to send out a patch to fix them. Skullgirls would have met the same fate if they hasn't managed to sweet talk MS into giving them another free patch.
And in case you didn't realize it from reading the OP, the reason why the patch is so large is because they had to completely reorganize the file system to address loading time issues with the 360 version, not because there was 600MB of broken game.
Kai Dracon
Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
While the frustration level varies depending on your internet situation, a lot of games on PS3 wouldn't be executed as well on 360 due to the update and patching restrictions. LittleBigPlanet is a big one, where everyone's clients need to stay in synch with game assets so that user levels are playable by everyone.
The 360 situation also helped kill RTS games on consoles IIRC, when EA made a push to get C&C3 very playable only to become unable to keep the game updated along with the PC version. Plenty of games have been hurt by MS's policies, including more recent releases like Dungeon Defenders and Awesomenauts.
The reality is that lots of games, sometimes depending on their genre as well, benefit from ongoing maintenance, support, and content updates. As the generation has gone on, the 360 side of the fence has become more and more restrictive; at the end of the day, I have to side with Sony's policies (and now Nintendo's stance with Wii U).
Plus, "making sure the game works right" is little comfort to games that will remain broken forever due to MS's patching fees and associated restrictions. It's not always simply a matter of telling devs to not be stupid and never let your game have any bugs. It is not humanly possible to discover every issue before a game ships - otherwise your game will never ship at all.
Castor Krieg
Banned
Sure, let's make all the games on CD again, 650MB might just get you 4MB of patches. What's that, you say? You want your 9GB game or 25GB Blu-ray game also patched in increments of 4MB? Good luck with that.
toythatkills
Member
I think you're well aware that you can't compare those two things directly. There's no evidence of the first because "hey, we tested our game really well" isn't news, whereas "developer bitches about patching" is, so it's only natural that the coverage wouldn't even be close to equal. That doesn't prove, or even imply, a single thing.
Don't get "can't afford" confused with "stubbornly refusing to pay." It's the same end result for the gamer but still an important distinction.
Delusibeta
Banned
ITT: Microsoft employees defending their employer's bullshit patching policies.
[Edit] But seriously, there is no excuse for Microsoft to charge developers for patching given the Xbox Live charge, and there's no excuse for Microsoft keeping such a pathetically small patch limit.
[Edit] But seriously, there is no excuse for Microsoft to charge developers for patching given the Xbox Live charge, and there's no excuse for Microsoft keeping such a pathetically small patch limit.
Yes there is. Lazy developers.
If they didn't enforce a limit and make it hard to get exceptions - those 30 seconds patches you are used to would soon become Wii U level "can't even play the game because everybody and his dog is trying to download the same 500mb patch at once" patch. It's so much easier to just re-bundle all the assets together and update the whole lot, even if only a few things have changed - which is probably exactly what these guys have done.
Edit: Also reading the change list, 95% of that stuff sounds like new functionality which would be in an executable patch. They probably needed a few assets for GUI elements for the new modes, and some files for the colour swaps - but I can't see anything in that list which justifies a 500mb patch.
Thank you MS-Gods for limiting patch sizes so you teach developers a lesson.
darkblade77
Member
Glad to hear that MS isn't being as backwards about the process as it initially sounded.
You know free dlc on Xbox actually means = charge the developer up the ass right?
They couldn't afford to have free DLC.. the game didnt even sell that well.
Sounds like a win for everyone IMO. The size of the patch gets reduced to a reasonable size and gamers still get the patch.
SolarPowered
Member
Yep, my preorder has been done since then.
Still sucks that it has taken this long. Biting the bullet and downloading the patch would have saved months of waiting(unless someone here plays on XBL using a dial up connection lol) and it's not like Microsoft is losing horrible amounts of cash when they charge for online gaming and throw ads at us.
Awesome
Valve DOESN'T charge a fee for online multiplayer, DOESN'T put arbitrary limits on patch sizes and DOESN'T force people to pay money to patch their game.
Completely unacceptable.
What lesson? That they had the audacity to create a patch larger than some arbitrary limit? Heaven forbid they actually fix the game but apparently the size of the patch is more important.
Completely unacceptable.
What lesson? That they had the audacity to create a patch larger than some arbitrary limit? Heaven forbid they actually fix the game but apparently the size of the patch is more important.
Do you also get annoyed when a game gets delayed because it fails MS certification? They should let us users decide if we want a buggy game or not right!
Their patch limits are very reasonable, it also prevents developers from shipping unfinished games then patching the content in later, aka the nintendo release day patch.
Risk Breaker
Member
As if a buggy game couldn't pass MS Cert or a polished game couldn't fail MS Cert. These patch limits are stupid and they severely hurt post-launch support. See Gears 2.
And yet there are more indie games on XBLA than there are games in total on Steam.
Enforcing standards on a console is a good thing. Every XBLA and indie game on the 360 has a free demo. Does any other console or Steam have that? Nope. Every game has no forced install, but a full optional install, custom soundtracks, achievements, 1080p upscaling, a consistent set of online features (some PS3 games don't even offer mute options for the in-game voice chat, which is fucking annoying), and small patches that mean I never have to wait more than a few seconds before I can play. Rare exceptions like this are just that - rare. The patch limit isn't 4MB though and hasn't been for years.
First, I know GAF loves to tell developers how lazy they are, but you could not be more wrong, at least in this case.
The reason MS has the 4 MB patch limit is because of consoles with HDDs. Non-HDD-equipped consoles have 32 megs of flash memory to hold game updates, so any updates larger than that requires a HDD. This and "user experience" are the primary reasons MS enforces this size limit.
And the reason the patch is so large is because we had to completely reorganize the game's file system, which was in the notes.
The game's load times on 360 were highly variable on 360, something that didn't show up in the testing environment, where all the systems are identical and on clean HDDs. Basically, different models of systems, HDDs and the state of HDDs resulted in load times ranging from a few seconds to a few minutes.
We determined that the variable aspect was the time it was taking to open files, of which we were opening thousands in each load. So to reduce the number of file open calls, we had to repackage almost all of the gameplay data into WAD files. This is why you're having to download a large chunk of the game again. This is also why handling the update as "free DLC" wasn't possible - the new file system required a new executable, and the new executable required the new data.
Also, we completely refactored Ms. Fortune. She was previously was twice the size of the other characters because she basically had to have head/no-head versions of every animation frame. Mike wrote some tech that basically deltas her for the headed frames, bringing her in line with the other characters. So even if we didn't have to do the other stuff, that would be about 90 megs of data right there.
The Ms. Fortune fix was extremely important to the rest of the patch, too - with the memory we got back, we were able to add the used to add the move lists, add more buffer for online play and add the low-res replacement sprites for when the streaming hiccups.
I'll leave the final determination up to you guys, but I think we've gone far above the call of duty on this patch.
Oh, the patch is still well above the 4 MB limit, and will need the waiver. But we're hopeful that the improvement in size will be enough to speed up the submission process.
Clay Davis
Member
they can't save patches to the 4gb of built in memory in all slims? all the patches I download are stored on my hard drive now, I thought you actually downloaded the patches now and not have them saved in flash like they were previously?
Cool, thanks for the explanation - that makes sense, but I guess the question now is - why did you refactor the data this patch when you could have pushed out the game modes and updates, then have worked on getting the larger re-organized patch out later. Also that way users of the non-hdd system could still have the new functionality.
what about those of us with old 360s? old core/arcade with no hdd even
That's not been true for a while. The patches used to have a 4MB limit and they'd download to the cache folder on whatever storage device was attached, so over time old patches would be overwritten as the folder filled up.
But now new game patches download to the same directory where the game save/install is. They show up under Storage in the dashboard, so you can manually delete them if you want to, but they no longer get overwritten unless a new version is released. As such, the patch limit is now higher - I don't know exactly what it is, but here's a few examples of title update sizes for 360 games: -
Medal of Honor Warfighter - 58MB
Skyrim - 33MB
Final Fantasy XII-2 - 31MB
Halo 4 - 30MB
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD - 27MB
Clay Davis
Member
didn't the arcades have 512mb of built in memory? and those who have no hdd aren't exactly buying a ton of games.
this is what I thought was happening. good to have it confirmed. thought I might be going crazy.
darkblade77
Member
Can the OP update the first post with this information? I was grossly mistaken on a key point here(the executable, and the reason for the filesize requirement).
I'm assuming that DLC is the "type" of update that instead does not have the same filesize restriction as what you're doing, from reading this.
More is better? Not to mention XBLA is completely toxic to indie developers. Several Indie developers have spoken out against it including Phil Fish and Johnathan Blow (some of the more successful indie games mind you).
Also, Valve does have a set of standards to meet, its called Steamwork. Standards are fine, but when it gets in the way of making your product better then it is a huge issue.
Because patching is expensive.
First, there's the time and money needed to make the patch. Then there's the time and money to test the patch, and then do all the bug fixing. Then there's the 1st party patch submission fees.
Why would our struggling publisher volunteer to pay double the cost when it doesn't need to?
Also, I strongly doubt people would want new features if the load times weren't fixed. It was a huge problem, and we wish we could've addressed this earlier.
I know things have changed under the hood somewhat, but officially the 4 MB Title Update policy still stands.
Also, there are politics involved in this: all but one or two of those games you mentioned are multi-millions sellers. Smaller independent games don't have nearly the clout, and aren't treated the same way. Millions of people buy those games and their DLC, so of course they're going to get preferential treatment. And I'm not being cynical - this was stated pretty directly to us.
Konami put out an update for Leedmees that I think was ~300 megs? And that took nearly 6 months to get approved.
DragonSworne
Banned
I have stopped buying games on XBLA and moved to Steam and eShop over a year ago.
I hate the fact that MS treats indie developers like crap. I don't know why so many indie developers flocked to MS, do they not know the history?
This is going to cost MS a lot of support if they continue these practices next gen.
I hate the fact that MS treats indie developers like crap. I don't know why so many indie developers flocked to MS, do they not know the history?
This is going to cost MS a lot of support if they continue these practices next gen.
Are you sure that the patch limit still isn't true for XBLA games? I ask because all the games you've posted as examples are big AAA games.
Clay Davis
Member
tony hawk hd was a live arcade release if I am not mistaken.
They have an official standard, but you can get waivers in certain cases.
Big, AAA games have an easier time getting these waivers than smaller independent games.
At least your honest about it, it sounds like your between a rock and a hard place really - shame the performance stuff wasn't picked up before going gold. By the sound of it, it may be easier just to re-publish the title and then have some kind of message in the old version (do you have a news ticker you can update remotely?) to tell people to re-download it, else people are going to be stuck with the original 1.9gb + massive patch. I understand Microsoft are not very flexible, especially for the little guys. But on the flip side I can see a lot more problems for everybody if they just allowed people to submit huge files willynilly, especially for 4gb users.