Perhaps one of the most disappointing things about the next generation of home consoles is the apparent constant need for day one patches. When a game releases, it’s often accompanied by a patch to fix a number of bugs and issues in the game and some of these patches are huge.
While the patch itself isn’t an inherently bad thing, the fact that the game in question requires one is a troubling notion. Sony Computer Entertainment Europe’s CEO Jim Ryan recently spoke with Metro’s GameCentral about the matter and has said that, for first party titles, they are “tightening up” day one patches.
He goes on to comment on how the matter is ultimately beyond their control when it comes to a third party game with a determined publisher, he said, “You’ve got to be clear minded about the responsibilities of the publisher and the responsibilities of the platform holder. This is not some sort of nanny state and I don’t think anybody would want that to be the case. And if publisher X chooses to go down a road of persistent, massive day one patches then ultimately publisher X will reap the consequences of that.”
Knowing full well that the day one patch is as touchy subject, he also speaks about how delaying a game to bring it up to scratch would anger more fans than it would please, “There are many people who would be… who are quite happy to wait a small period of time while a patch downloads, rather than wait six months for the game to appear.”
What are your thoughts on the day one patch?
