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Silent Hill HD Collection Xbox 360 Patch Cancelled

They had the source code for Silent Hill 2 & 3, it just turned out that it was sourcecodes for beta versions of the game.

They could have just compiled it and ran the fresh code on a PS2. They would have figured out that it was a beta back then.
 
They could have just compiled it and ran the fresh code on a PS2. They would have figured out that it was a beta back then.
They knew it was beta code back then, but that was all that was available to work with. Somehow Konami never conserved the final code. Therefore it was either use the beta code and try to find and fix all bugs that were still in there or try to reverse engineer the retail disc and use this as a source for making the port.
 
They knew it was beta code back then, but that was all that was available to work with. Somehow Konami never conserved the final code. Therefore it was either use the beta code and try to find and fix all bugs that were still in there or try to reverse engineer the retail disc and use this as a source for making the port.

This is exactly what Bluepoint does when they do HD conversions. They get a retail disc and reverse engineer it. If they need anything else, THEN they hit up source code. Tomm Hulett was talking like this was impossible in the 1UP.Com article, but this is exactly how Bluepoint does it.
 
This is exactly what Bluepoint does when they do HD conversions. They get a retail disc and reverse engineer it. If they need anything else, THEN they hit up source code. Tomm Hulett was talking like this was impossible in the 1UP.Com article, but this is exactly how Bluepoint does it.
Yes but that's just one way to do it. The Sly Cooper Collection wasn't reverse engineered and used archived source code instead and turned out great. It's not like reverse engineering is the only way to go and using source code is inferior. If Bluepoint had final code available they wouldn't get better source code via reverse engineering.
In any case the first step is to get working source code that you can work with as a base for doing the port. How you get it is less important, only matters that it's complete and working
That they only had beta code for the SH Collection certainly meant more works, but I think the whole problem gets a bit exaggerated. Beta means that the game at least is complete. Gameplay, puzzles, fighting etc, all features included, just not every bugfix for release or last minute changes to assets. And for last minute changes to assets, Tomm Hulett said in the same article that they used them from the retail disc, not the beta they had. But even if they had the final code, after the porting to the different systems you still have to do testing to find bugs because there can always be problems during development and the game would essentially be a beta again. And the problems the HD Collecion had at release and still has are not really unfixed bugs, Maria's eys is certainly a bug, but besides that it's mostly technical problems (yeah I know, there are problems like changed textures as well which I don't understand either when the used textures and sounds from the retail version or the music changes (maybe licence problems?))
That the SH Collection turned out so bad at release was probably more because of the developer being overburdened and time constraints from Konami. There were so many obvious flaws at release that no developer would wave through as finished.
 
Reverse engineering something to do a port sounds like an extremely inefficient use of resources though.

SH2 and 3 have had ports to Xbox and PC that would surely be from good builds of the game, did Konami and the developers of these ports lose the code to those too? I'm not ruling it out and trying to make it sound ridiculous given how incompetent Konami seems, but the SH HD guys surely could've done more than "welp, this beta code is all we have" or whatever.
 
Reverse engineering something to do a port sounds like an extremely inefficient use of resources though.

SH2 and 3 have had ports to Xbox and PC that would surely be from good builds of the game, did Konami and the developers of these ports lose the code to those too? I'm not ruling it out and trying to make it sound ridiculous given how incompetent Konami seems, but the SH HD guys surely could've done more than "welp, this beta code is all we have" or whatever.

Seeing as that is what was done to God of war hd, ico, and MGS collection it doesn't seem like such a dumb idea. It's the best HD collections out there.

and I have no reason to doubt when they said they lost the source code, they meant for everything. The developer is incompetent and has done nothing worth checking out ever, they probably aren't even in a position to question Konami when they send them old builds of the games, just tried to fix it their own shitty way, all that again however falls back on Konami even picking them to do it. Incompetence shines through nearly every single thing Konami are doing these days.
 
Seeing as that is what was done to God of war hd, ico, and MGS collection it doesn't seem like such a dumb idea. It's the best HD collections out there.
Actually the MGS collection has framerate drops, missing content (not very important content but content nonetheless), graphical glitches and other stuff. It's quite disappointing. SoTC also has fucked up grip controls/physics/etc.

Honestly it seems like a weird choice but if I had to pick the best HD collection so far, I'd go with the DMC collection. It may have rough looking 4:3 upscaled menus and a few ugly prerendered SD cutscenes, but the games run at a rock solid 60fps with a good amount of AA with no extra known bugs so far.
 
Therefore it was either use the beta code and try to find and fix all bugs that were still in there or try to reverse engineer the retail disc and use this as a source for making the port.

Or just cancel the whole "HD collection". Simple as that.

If they really KNEW that they had beta sourcecode and still created this "HD collection", then oh well. What idiots.

It's like uh we don't have the latest blueprints. But oh well, who cares. We will just build the bridge. If it breaks down, suckers will already have paid for it.

They also could have tried to reverse engineer the PC versions. Should have been much easier. And I can't really believe that none of all those ports didn't get archived somewhere. Sierra didn't archive any of their sourcecode. That was dumb back then. But it was 20 years ago. Not even 10 years ago and they deleted the latest sourcecode, although it cost lots and lots of money? Konami is completely incompetent.

Actually the MGS collection has ... missing content (not very important content but content nonetheless)

Ape Escape was probably a property issue, because MGS collection was also released on 360. So thank you Microsoft. The funny cutscenes were videos, yeah, should have been included at least in SD. I mean R&C HD collection included even 240p or worse videos. Better: should have been remade in HD.

MGS3 Duel mode? Yeah, sucks that they didn't include it. No idea why.

But I don't know what graphical issues you mean. It seems there were some bugs that happened on specific revisions of PS3 hardware. My PS3 for example had no issues at all. Slowdown when shooting stinger missiles was also on PS2.
 
Ape Escape was probably a property issue, because MGS collection was also released on 360. So thank you Microsoft. The funny cutscenes were videos, yeah, should have been included at least in SD. I mean R&C HD collection included even 240p or worse videos. Better: should have been remade in HD.

MGS3 Duel mode? Yeah, sucks that they didn't include it. No idea why.
Also: Guy Savage.
Also also: skateboarding.
 
If they really KNEW that they had beta sourcecode and still created this "HD collection", then oh well. What idiots.

It's like uh we don't have the latest blueprints. But oh well, who cares. We will just build the bridge. If it breaks down, suckers will already have paid for it.
I don't think this example works. Or at least it would only work if they had willingly let the source code they had in a beta state without fixing any bugs and just porting it with all bugs intact as the HD Collection.
But I don't see much indication for that.
It's not like the HD Collection was full of bugs. It had and partly still has technical problems. Unstable fps, features missing, at release less fog density.
I would rather assume these are problems due to the developers not being capable of making a proper port, not because the (PS2) beta source code had less dense fog etc and they didn't notice or bother to fix it.
For the design changes I'm puzzled, too since the stated they used the retail disc for assets/textures/sounds. That's curious.
I just don't get why people make such a big deal out of the fact that they didn't have the final code. Of cause this makes things more difficult for the development and was certainly part of why the HD Collection turned out the way it did. But only because it adds an additional layer of work for fixing the bugs still in the beta code they didn't had to do, if they had the final code instead. But I wouldn't bet on that with final code the HD Collection couldn't had the same technical issues as well or that a more capable developer wouldn't be able to make a perfect port out of the beta code.
 
ok so they replied back to me, just one question, since I have to send my copy back to them, am I better off with keeping the 360 version, or trading it in for the ps3 version and patch it?
which one is better if I had those 2 options?
 
ok so they replied back to me, just one question, since I have to send my copy back to them, am I better off with keeping the 360 version, or trading it in for the ps3 version and patch it?
which one is better if I had those 2 options?
After the patch the PS3 version is noticeable better than the 360 version.
 
Posted yet?

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Hmm.. getting an HD copy still seems doubtful. I already have SH2, but not SH3 yet (or vice versa), so might as well get the other. I'm hoping they eventually change they're minds about the patch cancellation and fix everything up. This is such a terrible way to release an HD of two great games.

I'm still new to the SH series, so what order should I play the series? I was planning to do:
SH Origins -> SH1 -> SH2 -> SH3 -> etc

I'd like to try and play all the installments (maybe not Homecoming) so which ones are sequels and which ones are spinoffs?

Just don't play Origins before 1 and 3, it's not a bad game, but the main plot feel like a bad SH1 fan-fiction and it would remove all the mystery from SH1 story when you'll play it for the first time.
 
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