How do they get away with releasing games like Skyrim on consoles?

[JasonKaotic]

That's your disc. Works perfectly fine for me.

 

[Shock and Awe]

Thats a very rare problem for me, so it doesn't bother me to much.

 

[Richardplex]

http://bit.ly/wNrFo9 - the reason is Bethesda has so much good will for some reason that people don't care. It's why Obsidian gets dumped on for their glitchy games but Bethesda's glitches are seen with affection.

I guess intentionally putting out something that's faulty and not telling anyone is cool, but day one DLC is completely unacceptable.

And it's not a minor problem, look at the meta critic scores for Skyrim. 8.2 for PC, 8.4 for xbox, 5.4 for PS3. Obsidian found out in new vegas and told Bethesda, they didn't care.

 

[David Bjur]

I'm currently typing this while I stare at a screenfreeze on my TV.

After battling through a fort siege while the framerate consistently spluttered and wheezed it finally locked up on the last guy. I'd previously quit the game and reloaded because on my way to the siege the game kept stuttering every two or three steps and I hoped that stopping and starting again would remedy the problem. It did not.

Now, if I was playing this on a PC I could turn the specs down and hope it runs smoother, but as a console gamer my only choice is to reset and hope I can get through it without another freeze, just like every other time there is a problem with a console game (which has become far more frequent since developers were given the option to release patches, I notice).

This is the exact experience I've had with every Bethesda game I've played, although I must admit Skyrim has ran considerably better than either of the Fallout games, so I have to ask: How do Bethesda get away with repeatedly releasing these games on consoles when the hardware is barely capable of supporting them?

That's like Ford selling me a car with pedals instead of an engine.

Hmmm, I use the freezes as a signal that I should stop playing and go outside (which happens every couple of hours). Also, I've encountered alot of NPC's stuck in the ground, framerate drops, objects that pop in and reverse flying dragons.
Do I get annoyed by it? Yes, but I don't want to get bashed by The Escapist community so I just keep my mouth shut and don't make a thread about it (I'm kind of pissed that I spent 50$ on the game but as I said, don't argue about Skyrim on the Escapist).
OT: People keeps buying the games, so Bethesda doesn't need to fix the bugs, since the games still sell. Why do we buy the games? I dunno, incest is bad?
I'm playing on the Xbox btw.

 

[Terminate421]

Because NOTHING is perfect

Just reset and get over it.

 

[PatrickXD]

I've never had a problem with Skyrim so much as stuttering. Same goes for pretty much any other game, apart from Fallout 3 which had occasional extreme lag. That ocurred once or twice over the course of 200 hours or so so I don't mind.
Oh, Dark Souls had awful lag. But I figured it might as well be part of the game. Just another way to kill me.

 

[putowtin]

I've never had a single crash in three 50+ playthroughs on my 360,
it's like people moaning about FO:New vegas, 5 character later and I've only had two crashes. Maybe I'm lucky, but generally the big games that everyone seems to have problems with (Fallout 3, Oblivion, dragon Age) I've never had an issue with.

That's like Ford selling me a car with pedals instead of an engine.

Well you know car companies these days, if you don't take the option extras you only get half a car!

 

[Jitters Caffeine]

Are you playing on the PS3? Because if you are, there's a very big, very game breaking glitch in the game that is directly caused by the architecture of the console. I'm not sure of the fine details, but the way the game is supposed to work is that when you get far enough away from something, it's supposed to stop rendering the area. But the PS3 version of the game never stops rendering the game. No matter how far away you get from it.

 

[Baldemar]

Game devs do whatever they want, doesn't matter how much you whine.

 

[rob_simple]

I get what a lot of you are saying, but don't you think it kind of sucks that we are all resigned to this being the state of the industry now? Even if we accept that bugs will be bugs, this generation's hardware has been worse than anything before it, if you consider now how big an industry gaming has become.

I've had to replace both my current gen consoles within two years of owning them. Every single one of my friends who has a 360 has seen it RRoD at least once, myself included (first person to say 'my 360 works fine so shut up' gets a free splinter glass facial,) and I can't find solid sources on the subject, but every forum I've checked about PS3 issues claims that in the newer models Sony started swapping out the original parts for cheaper Chinese equivalents that don't function as well.

Microsoft continued to sell the original 360's knowing that they were almost guaranteed to break (yes, I know that not all of them have) because it was cheaper to repair/replace the ones that did instead of being forced to do a full product recall and release a god damn product that worked.

How in the hell are we okay with this?

 

[Twilight_guy]

Every game made by Bethesda is bugged up the ass. Doesn't matter if its on a console or a computer. They just have a nasty habit of releasing games that are for various reasons heavily bugged. Console does not present itself as a separate or special argument here. As for why there company hasn't gone int he red a million times over, people see the good in the games as outweighing the bugs, which speaks highly of them.

 

[RuralGamer]

If you're using a PS3, then I dunno; I can't compare.

If its an Xbox, then again, I dunno; so far, with the exceptions of a few graphical hiccups (i.e. walls or floors not appearing; enter and exit a building fixes it), one guy teleporting out of the wall of a city (making the quest I was on impossible; a reload fixed that right up), the rare crashes and the ocassional moment when the inventory menu takes a hissy fit and refuses to work, requiring you to close and reopen it, I've had no other problems and I'm running it on a 3 year old Xbox 360. Yet practically all my acquaintences who also have Xboxes all seem to or have in the past, suffered major issues. To be honest, I'm just grateful my Xbox seems to still be in working condition, considering I don't know anyone who hasn't replaced theirs in the last two years or so. I have no idea how that works, at all. Especially because of my circle of friends, I am one of the most frequent users.

snip

How in the hell are we okay with this?

Because that's the best they can do(?) and considering PS3 (at least they do, I don't know about Xboxes) are actually sold at a loss, all cost-cutting measures seem tempting to these companies. Pretty much all console generations have been plagued with problems, yet few seem to remember them a few years down the line.

At the same time, the console market isn't competitive enough; until there is sufficient pressure to excel, manufacturers and their parts suppliers aren't in any major danger, aside from people resolving to save up and buy PCs using reliable parts from suppliers who are under pressure to perform; but saving up isn't always an option and that's something they can bank on.

 

[Mister K]

PS3 version works fine.

 

[chiggerwood]

I played Fallout 3 for over a hundred hours and nothing like that ever happened to me. What are you talking about? Did you ever think maybe there's something wrong with the game disk, or your console?

 

[rob_simple]

Because that's the best they can do(?) and considering PS3 (at least they do, I don't know about Xboxes) are actually sold at a loss, all cost-cutting measures seem tempting to these companies. Pretty much all console generations have been plagued with problems, yet few seem to remember them a few years down the line.

But it's not the best they can do, because they can't do it. They're selling the consoles at a loss because they're packing them full of expensive hardware that doesn't work to play games that don't run properly.

Yeah, all console generations have had their problems (I seem to recall some of the original PS2's having issues with the fan or the cable or something? I never met anyone with the problem,) but like I said this is the first one where you could buy a console that was pretty much guaranteed to break sooner or later.

As I keep saying, all my old consoles work perfectly (I still have a fully functioning Gameboy and Megadrive I) but I've had to replace both my current gen consoles within two years of owning them at most (my 360 actually RRoD'd in under a year.)

We're going backwards.

 

[renegade7]

Skyrim would require a pretty high-end (expensive) computer to play. If the released exclusively for PC, they'd be cutting themselves off from a very sizeable player group.