I searched Eventhubs for any articles that news about HDR not being supported any longer, but I couldn’t find anything. Thanks for the tip.
Its not just one game man, its the game, without SF2 at this moment i can honestly say i will stop playing fighting games…Capcom, Shoryuken, Madcatz, etc…Can make their money right now off of the rabid SFIV fans but once the hype dies down in a couple years they better hope the foundation(SF2 folks) will still be there to support the fighting game community once those SFIV run off to something else.
I agree with most of it, man. I do not think I like fighting games, as they are now. I like Street Fighter II.
On the other hand, they do not really need to care. On one hand, SF4 by now, after SSF4, is some sort of electronic thrash with no value at all. When SFvT is released, SSF4 will be just the same. SF2 is the one and only that started it all and yet it’s still alive. However, most the pseudo-replacements have also been published by Capcom. They happen to make more money from the masses than they do with keeping their classics alive. Unless they get too greedy and flood the market with fighters, they will surely get more money from the upcoming crossovers and eventual SF5 or the like than, say, release a SF2R arcade version in Japan, or some other remixed version for consoles. So, I am not furious with Capcom or anything, I just know better not to expect them to keep the game alive instead of the community. SF2 is alive in Japan because they have great players keeping it alive. spending money on arcades and showing the game being played to people. When any 2 people who like SF2 enter an arcade saloon and play SF4 instead of the game they prefer, they are letting their game die.
Another thing is, if you prefer the classics, do not buy hit-confirm fighters and those eye-candy crap games. As soon as the company got their money, it was worth it.
NO, if you sell something that’s broken, then you FUCKING FIX IT.
Don’t get me wrong, Coth; I’m ALL for whatever fixing, patches, or add-on content (paid or otherwise) Capcom would offer for HDR. I also think it’s totally ridiculous that the PSN version is clearly inferior to the XBL one, or that the game wasn’t even formally released in Japan. It’s not likely from a business standpoint at this point though, sadly.
after playing HDR on XBL per 5 days, i have to say that XBL version is obvious the best version(duh! lol), even so, XBL version is still buggy, some disconnections here and there, sometimes hdr kicked me out from XBL and i have to login again.
When you play in local mode, the win-loses counter sometimes doesn’t count wins and loses at all, this bug is not the big deal, but it’s a bug, this bug only affects 360 version.
Thanks god i’ve got rid of ridiculous lag and disconnection from PSN HDR, by the way, and one more time: is not psn the problem, is HDR code, PSN is a solid Network.
Here is a brand new answer from a Capcom representative not directed at this thread but in general.
""How come Capcom doesn’t patch stuff that’s a simple fix? There are bugs that can be solved quickly, yet they still remain in your games, why?
Sven: …What you think is a simple fix, may actually be a simple fix for a few of [our] guys to execute in a weekend. But to patch a game requires a full test pass on our side to ensure that that fix didn’t break anything else, and then submission to [Sony and Microsoft], who in turn also have to do a full test pass to certify the update. [To make] even the smallest change, it’s tens of thousands of dollars in man hours.
In short, there’s no such thing as a “simple fix” on a console."
Basically if it costs tens of thousands of dollars then HDR will probably never be patched because a patch would probably not recoup that money.
Maybe more balance changes with it could lead to more sales because it is a game that is constantly being refined?
Wow, getting an answer out of someone as high up as Sven is impressive. Sadly, this is also a pretty poor excuse. Even lowly XBLA titles (and HDR should be on the higher end of said titles) should plan for at least TWO updates, one for immediate problems and one for about a year later to iron everything out. It’s unfortunate that Capcom spent so much energy getting us amped for HDR only to let it falter so close to greatness…
As a FYI, Microsoft lets developers ONE free title update, every update after that costs thousands just to submit, not to mention the ridic testing requirements every patch must meet.
Yes, it’s an outdated and pretty ridiculous system.
Apparently, players want the mediocrity. SF4 is a huge hit.
Er, if there’s no revenue stream then that generally means there are no fans.
Successful corporations obviously care what their fans want. That’s how they stay profitable.
That’s not true either. Let’s put it another way: corporations only care what their paying fans want. The FG community wanted a new SF, so Ono gave it to them. Casual fans got their easy mode SF and hardcore fans got their new SF title. All those who dislike SF4 are obviously in the minority, considering they haven’t bought the game (I haven’t), and the proof is that SF4 is successful in terms of units sold (even though I don’t like it, I’m glad it was successful). If HDR fans were willing to pay for another patch (which I am, no more than $10 tho), then we would probably get it.
chuckle And how does a corporation acquire paying fans in the first place?
How many people paid for Street Fighter IV before the game was announced?
A person’s willingness to pay for something is usually a sign that he is a fan of the product.
If there was enough evidence that enough people would pay for an update to HDR, then such would probably be forthcoming.
I actually ask Seth at Evo about the possibilty of the community chipping in a portion for a HDR patch and he said they can never ask the community to do such a thing.
He went on to tell me a patch for both consoles would cost an average of $150,000 plus finding a team to actually do it.
I said, “Oof! …Nevermind.”
What is the system? i.e. What is Microsoft’s rationale for doing things that way?
I unfortunately don’t have details as I wasn’t personally involved in dealing with these Microsoft hoops when I worked at EA, I just heard that “one single free patch” thing from coworkers.
Then how are you qualified to call the system outdated and ridiculous?
Because PC has been having free-for-all patches since forever, to universal acclaim, and every developer ever complains endlessly about MS’s crazy patch requirements. Also, it’s just common sense that letting game devs patch their games more, rather than making it be as pleasant as pulling your own teeth out, is a good thing.
Again: What is Microsoft’s rationale for doing things this way? Do you have any idea?
Why are you comparing the PC platform to a console platform? Every PC is different, and for that reason alone, patching must be more frequent on a PC than on a console. (Just as, for example, patches and updates for Android software are necessarily more frequent than software updates on iPhones.)
MS is one of the most successful companies in the history of the world. No company does everything right, but for one with a track record of mega-success like MS, I give them enough credit to at least look into their reasons for doing something that I don’t like before I malign them.
You have a background in game development (or something close to that), so you must know that one side effect of permitting developers to patch their software whenever is that new releases are frequently bug-laden. Many titles don’t even ship in a finished state. I’m not going to say that MS personnel deliberately make the XBL update process burdensome, but if they did, that would be one way to give developers the impetus to tighten up their games before their release dates.
Other people here have mentioned the high cost of updating XBox Live games. This stands to reason, considering a software problem on a PC can be significantly worse on a console. Where PCs are made to be diagnosed and repaired by users (to an extent) in the event of a major software problem (e.g. one that affects other software, or some key hardware in the system), consoles are meant to be contained units, to be repaired only by qualified technicians. If some software breaks your PC, no big deal, you reinstall the operating system or change out some hardware. If some developer writes code (intentionally or not) that hangs your XBox (or worse), then it’s probably going to cost you or Microsoft (or both) more in time and/or money to rectify the problem. And remember, the XBox 360 is a loss leader for Microsoft; they can’t afford to have their consoles dropping out by the hundreds of thousands or (Heaven forbid) the millions. So, they have to institute a rigorous and costly testing methodology.
There’s a Dos Equis “Most Interesting Man in the World” billboard that I see on my way to work, each day. It reads, “Some people know more than you. Listen to those people.” I’m not referring to myself, but I bet that if you went to MS and talked to some of the people responsible for the XBL software distribution system, you’d learn some things. Maybe not, but I doubt it. Do you really think that you have all the answers, here?
That doesn’t even make sense. Neither the claim “Fixing bugs is more important on PC than on console” (start of your 5th paragraph) nor the claim “Fixing bugs is more important on console than on PC” (2nd half of your 5th paragraph) means that making patching a pain is a good idea. What is the appropriate claim to make is that “Making bug fixes and updates in general easier is important, no matter the platform”, which translates directly into “Making patching easy is important, no matter the platform”. Compare a game like Team Fortress 2 on Xbox and on PC. Which version of the game has the least bugs, most features, and is the most robust overall? Hint: it’s not the one where patching is nigh-impossible.
For your information, the rigorous Microsoft (and Sony, and Nintendo) testing is surprisingly limited in scope, but very deep in terms of man-hours. Basically they’ll reject your game for 1) Crashing or hanging at any time, 2) Preventing you from “finishing” the game, 3) Accidentally deleting save data, or 4) Infringing any one of a long list of UI guidelines. They don’t test in-game bugs or anything like what HD Remix actually suffers from. That part actually mostly makes sense for the initial release of a game, but where it gets retarded is that to test it all, they basically need to test every combination of every possible game path in every language and every region, and redo that for every patch, so the cost becomes prohibitive. Also, they charge thousands for patches and drastically limit what you can actually patch. The end result is that nobody wants to make patches on console, and overall quality suffers. When a bug is found after release, it’s just judged “too expensive” to fix unless there’s a heavy commitment to a heavy update (like extra paid DLC) that makes it worth it to slip the fixes in.
Microsoft Europe has a different set of testers than Microsoft North America does, have 0.001% different guidelines from each other, and duplicate all the testing for everything. Sony and Nintendo’s three territories have a similar deal, with work redone in triplicate for no smart reason. Seriously, the differences are things like Sony North America requiring a lowercase letter on the word “controller”, while Sony Europe requires uppercase Controller, it really is that level of retarded.
That’s not even counting the developer’s testing, which is obviously a lot more thorough in the first place and often includes multiple testing teams working in parallel. You know, like first-rate developers do on PC for every game.
So yeah, I have not actually spoken to a Microsoft representative on that issue, but I do happen to know what I’m talking about, being a professional game programmer who’s actually shipped console games with MS, Sony, and Nintendo, and had to follow their long list of guidelines. And again, I’m not the only guy who’s aware that the current situation is ridiculous - it really is a well-known fact that patching is just too hard on consoles right now. HD Remix’s situation just serves as the latest blatant example.
So yeah, I don’t exactly blame Capcom / Backbone for not wanting to get into that mess, it’s just how the current console market is setup. It’s a good part of the reason why, as of now, any fighting game I develop will be first released on PC - it’s just a healthier, smarter option for patching.