This fucking idiotic limitation doesn't mean small patches. It means no patches, or highly delayed ones. How in the hell is that supposed to be good for consumers?
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A couple devs claim Switch patch sizes can be sometimes limited & other hurdles occur
- Thread starter Atheerios
- Start date
This fucking idiotic limitation doesn't mean small patches. It means no patches, or highly delayed ones. How in the hell is that supposed to be good for consumers?
How did I know this thread would be about the NBA Playground devs blaming Nintendo for their broken game?
Either they lied when they claimed that there would be online within days after launch, or they were too incompetent to understand they couldn't meet Nintendo's patching requirements.
Either they lied when they claimed that there would be online within days after launch, or they were too incompetent to understand they couldn't meet Nintendo's patching requirements.
Renna Hazel
Member
Hopefully it leads to developers releasing finished games, which would be better for the consumer than buying a game and having to download a 50 gig patch.
shadowfall
Member
Nintendo being difficult as usual. This is why I dont buy any 3rd party stuff on Switch.
Thought the exact same thing. Pretty obvious how people are looking for ways to dogpile on anything that can be spun as negative.
Spacejaws
Member
This is a bit worrying. Not sure of all the details but I don't think placing restrictions on developers is going to change their practice. If its anything like Wii and Wii U it means having pretty definitivley the worst version of a multiplat game that remains unpatched with none of the DLC available or we get shitty spin of games ala Soul Calibur Legends.
I think Nintendo is trying to be more accommodating with the switch and I'd also like to think they'll work out a resolution that probably will have nintendo give way first or the third party content will suffer again.
Think this means the Switch versions are garunteed to be released years after the originals as GOTY or Complete editions. Ain't nobody got time for that. Nobody is going to put in years of work to make the game paticularly bug free just to appease Nintendo. It just won't be released or will release and remain broken or release far later.
I think Nintendo is trying to be more accommodating with the switch and I'd also like to think they'll work out a resolution that probably will have nintendo give way first or the third party content will suffer again.
Think this means the Switch versions are garunteed to be released years after the originals as GOTY or Complete editions. Ain't nobody got time for that. Nobody is going to put in years of work to make the game paticularly bug free just to appease Nintendo. It just won't be released or will release and remain broken or release far later.
yeah nintendo is so difficult that they allowed their patch to be bigger than normal
damn difficult nintendo!
Team Filler
Member
It's kind of unreal the amount of shitposts and clearly not reading the OP that's in this thread.
crazy monkey
Banned
Creativity thrives in constraints. I say good. Game size are getting too big and because of unfinished product we get huge patches after. This is good.
RavageDark
Member
You seem surprised.
this particular case is not "good" per se
but platform holders having tight requeriments for their patches could be good
Vegetable Lasagna
Member
Well, yeah? Assets are packaged together in bundles, so even if a single asset in a given bundle is updated you're going to have to download the entire bundle no matter. If you don't want it done that way the initial download/size on disc is going to be much larger, runtime memory is going to be consumed by assets at the expense of everything else, and loading is going to take a lot longer.
So, which would you prefer? Bigger patches? Or less optimized games that have huge initial downloads/file sizes just to keep the patches smaller?
But yeah, it's just devs being devs. Of course they don't care because there is no reason too.
Game sizes are getting too big because art assets are huge. Especially at 4k. It's not going to get any better either. But yeah, pretty much the same response as above. There is no creativity thriving with restricting patch sizes. You're just asking for a gimped experience to get smaller updates.
Renna Hazel
Member
I don't think Nintendo requires games to be bug free, you don't need 20 gig patches and such to fix bugs. They can just release...complete games.
I'm pretty sure DLC doesn't count as a patch, so this shouldn't be a huge issue.
I wonder if the on-system storage is the limitation here. Since you can't move games to an SD card or whatever, Nintendo may be forcing people to avoid inflating the size of their games too much.
This is a stupid solution, and if people had control over the storage on the Switch, this may be avoidable.
This is a stupid solution, and if people had control over the storage on the Switch, this may be avoidable.
Team Filler
Member
Yeah, I guess I really shouldn't be at this point.
I'd like to hear what the actual hold up for this patch is before making a judgement either way, but I guess half-cocked hot takes is the norm now.
Bravo to Nintendo. I am fully supportive of their policy. This would hold third party developers accountable and discourage developers from release untested and unfinished games. I believe Nintendo has the best interest for consumers in mind with such a policy. There is absolutely no excuse for buying a retail game and not being able to play it without downloading a patch first.
For too long, developers have been taking advantage of gamers and using patching as a means of analytics, upselling and various other anticonsumer tactics. Hopefully this will send a message to the industry that releasing a half baked game is not normal.
For too long, developers have been taking advantage of gamers and using patching as a means of analytics, upselling and various other anticonsumer tactics. Hopefully this will send a message to the industry that releasing a half baked game is not normal.
Probably under a contractual obligation to release it the same day as every other platform
Lazy devs should learn how to make compressed games and updates. Nintendo usually does quite a remarkable job on this matter.
ScientificPizza
Banned
I mean this has only really been an issue with Playgrounds so far. Snake Pass and Blaster Master have released patches with content updates and gameplay changes just fine. Even some of the neo geo stuff received pretty quick patches to fix some issues at launch.
NBA Playgrounds obviously was rushed to release on the Switch and Saber are playing catchup. Their communication has also been pretty poor.
Like you don't give away free copies of an upcoming game as an apology just because Nintendo has strict patch restrictions. There's more going on here than that
NBA Playgrounds obviously was rushed to release on the Switch and Saber are playing catchup. Their communication has also been pretty poor.
Like you don't give away free copies of an upcoming game as an apology just because Nintendo has strict patch restrictions. There's more going on here than that
ghostwritingduck
Member
Nintendo's patch policy also kept Sabre Interactive from fixing the Masterchief Collection's online.
In all seriousness, I wouldn't be surprised to hear Nintendo is being a pain about patches, but I wouldn't take one developers word as gospel.
In all seriousness, I wouldn't be surprised to hear Nintendo is being a pain about patches, but I wouldn't take one developers word as gospel.
Lazy devs, oh man those guys, don't get me started
We don't live in a world where post-launch support can be easily avoided.
Zelda needed post launch support. Splatoon needed post-launch support. Mario Kart 8 got post-launch support. Why is Nintendo not releasing finished games?!
/s
OmegaDL50
Member
Let's be real here, I can say with absolute certainty that some of you would have never bought the Switch anyways if it had a 512GB nand storage at the price demands for such capacity and Switch still maintain it's size / footprint / dimensions.
Zombegoast
Member
Unpopular opinion but all the bloat should have been reduced during development.
Vital Tundra
Member
This is probably because the way Nintendo released the Switch with its OS and its inability to move over games to external storage. Kinda bullshit on Nintendo's part. They knew they only had 32gb of internal yet we can't control the way our data is managed after the fact.
Spacejaws
Member
But if you have to be fully patched for the DLC...then technically would we be paying for patches on Switch
Having a 'finished game' is subjective term these days. I don't think you ar ever going to have a game release that is 'finished' there are always bugs of a sort. If you are talking about playable then Assassins Creed Unity was playable on release. It had severe issues but you could play from start to finish. The pathes improved it immensely and if it was to be released on Switch and the option was to either leave it unpatched and full of bugs or throw extra dev time at it what do you think Ubisoft would do? The only way to encourage devs to keep patches small would be if all the big console devs had to follow the same policy which ain't happening and would simply leave Nintendo with their policies with the worst version of third party games.
I'm also kinda agreeing with you though. I have a 400 game steam library, I'm not sure why Doom has to be 80GBs or Black Ops 3 100GB+ but Ninty can't change that by themselves.
Renna Hazel
Member
There is a difference between patches and DLC
/not sarcasm
But if you have to be fully patched for the DLC...then technically would we be paying for patches on Switch
Having a 'finished game' is subjective term these days. I don't think you ar ever going to have a game release that is 'finished' there are always bugs of a sort. If you are talking about playable then Assassins Creed Unity was playable on release. It had severe issues but you could play from start to finish. The pathes improved it immensely and if it was to be released on Switch and the option was to either leave it unpatched and full of bugs or throw extra dev time at it what do you think Ubisoft would do? The only way to encourage devs to keep patches small would be if all the big console devs had to follow the same policy which ain't happening and would simply leave Nintendo with their policies with the worst version of third party games.
I'm also kinda agreeing with you though. I have a 400 game steam library, I'm not sure why Doom has to be 80GBs or Black Ops 3 100GB+ but Ninty can't change that by themselves.
If those were my options, I'd rather have a patched game than an incomplete one that is never patched. Granted, I simply wouldn't purchase the game if it released with a ton of bugs and glitches and missing features. I'd hope the industry tries to avoid that path and any policy that encourages it is fine with me.
Principate
Saint Titanfall
This is an monumentally silly view point. On Every level. How are you going to store these 50gb patches per game on a portable device? On your 5TB micro sd cards? Did you even think that idea through for a single second like literally one?
Vegetable Lasagna
Member
hahaha Epic is the lazy dev here. If you don't think Unreal Engine 4 optimizations are handled well enough... Get a job at Epic and teach them how to code an engine I guess?
But guess what? UE4 does a great job in that respect. Your brain is not doing job a great job though and Nintendo's archaic rules are the problem here.
So yeah, the games are already heavily compressed. That's one of the reasons patches are bigger. I explained this above in a previous post. Stop complaining about things you don't have an understanding of. Try educating yourself first and then complaining if there is a valid reason still.
Most patches are not due to "unfinished games". Christ many GAFers need to stick to discussing whether they like a game or not, because their knowledge of development borders on farce.
Modern games are hugely complicated affairs with complex engines that we as gamers benefit from and enjoy. But because they are the way they are, no matter how much testing you do with small QA groups, once a game goes public and hundreds of thousands if not millions of people play new bugs are discovered. Things that are essentially impossible to discover and eliminate 100% without such large scale play testing. There are simply too many variables. So you patch as bugs are found, despite you already fixing a million bugs prior to release. Even Nintendo games have bugs they couldn't anticipate. Unless a company is willing to spend 20 million just on QA and gamers are willing to spend $90 on games to compensate, games will always release with issues.
This shit from Nintendo is yet more regressive nonsense and directly impacts QOL on their Switch console.
GrantDaNasty
Member
I can see why Nintendo would put limits on that stuff, but it's weird to me how some people seem to think having too many patches or large patch sizes is somehow "laziness".
As a developer, being able to push an update to your game live with the press of a button is an amazing tool to help developers get to work on resolving any possible issues or reacting based on feedback by the community. Feel free to say "well they need to do several weeks of QA first or optimize their filesizes" but realize then that y'know, when you complain about the faces in MvC:I or the framerate in Prey, that these things will not be resolved until weeks, if not months down the line as a result.
As a developer, being able to push an update to your game live with the press of a button is an amazing tool to help developers get to work on resolving any possible issues or reacting based on feedback by the community. Feel free to say "well they need to do several weeks of QA first or optimize their filesizes" but realize then that y'know, when you complain about the faces in MvC:I or the framerate in Prey, that these things will not be resolved until weeks, if not months down the line as a result.
Principate
Saint Titanfall
Modern console patches are unfeasible on mobile devices. It's a plain fact. A limitation has to be imposed unless your seriously expecting people to spend hundreds to thousands of dollars on multiple terabyte cards.
Renna Hazel
Member
The game in question was released missing intended features that were supposed to be a few days out. So it was an unfinished game. I don't see why wanting to avoid that is so offensive to some, but whatever.
Zelda's patches weren't DLC. Balance patches are a thing too, particularly with multiplayer games.
Linkstrikesback
Member
Bollocks, this is squarely nintendos fault for being ass backwards again. It's not like there's a lack of past evidence of Nintendo having policies that don't benefit consumers and make life hell for Devs.
Good job not understanding how game development actually works i guess.
ronaldthump
Member
Renna Hazel
Member
And the Zelda patches have been 163MB. I never said patches should be banned, but limiting their size is a good thing.
TheGreatMightyPoo
Banned
Untrue.
It is simple: let consumers decide how to handle the patches. If they have space, they can choose to download it or not. Simple.
Did you want the game to release when it did? If it released very delayed, Nintendo fanboys will cry how developers totally send their games out to die. I know because I've seen such arguments here about a trillion times.
So you let a developer release on time, and then benefit their fans by ensuring they do eventually get all the content. And you fucking allow devs to reduce their game size when needed, as per OP. There is no justification for this behavior that isn't absurd.
ronaldthump
Member
this thread is hilarious btw. If a patch can fix and/or make a game better - somehow its apparently not a good thing.
Know what else would be a good thing? Allowing Switch owners control over moving their saves/game files so that concerns about file size are a non-issue.
Principate
Saint Titanfall
They do benefit consumers if the devs try to limit patch sizes as much as feasibly possible. Imagine 3 years from now with multiple 50-100gb patch sizes. How many storage cards will you have to juggle to store that shit? An extra 100gb internal would be a drop in the water regardless to that problem. Patch sizes would need to be incentived to be kept at a minimum otherwise things will get ridiculous very quickly.
Niceguydan8
Member
Eh, it's probably somewhere in the middle to be honest. I don't think Saber should get by without anyone being critical of their treatment with the Switch version of the game.
The whole "limiting size for users on a portable" seems kind of reasonable to me. It would be nice to allow us the option, but I also get the point that Nintendo may not want people downloading tens of GBs of patches on a device that only has 32GB built in.
this thread is hilarious btw. If a patch can fix and/or make a game better - somehow its apparently not a good thing.
nobody is saying that?
ShadowFox08
Member
I wonder of something like this is partily holding back AAA third party titles on switch. Are they scared of +25GB size games?