Owners of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim on the PlayStation 3 have been irate over the troubles of its first DLC expansion, Dawnguard.
Already available on the Xbox 360 and PC, the former for months, Bethesda has informed players on several occasions (and ever so vaguely) that technical troubles are plaguing Dawnguard’s PS3 development, causing its delay. The vampire-hunting DLC appeared sin esperanza this week when the developer admitted it might not release for the platform at all.
But while the anger is unanimous, its target is not. The Dawnguard drama has raised a valid point of contention over the last few months: Just how much does Sony warrant the blame? The console maker is notorious for the complex hardware comprising its third generation gaming system; but then again, you can’t mention the development history of Skyrim (and many Bethesda titles, for that matter) without invoking its laundry list of bugs and patches.
But in the end, we may never know. Rather than verbally admonishing one another or drafting statements through their legal departments, it appears that Sony and Bethesda have a strong collaboration when it comes to Skyrim and DLC.
In an interview with Kotaku, Sony Vice President Adam Boyes revealed that the company is working directly with Bethesda to bring Dawnguard to fruition. Additionally, he cast his support behind everyone involved in the project:
“We work with all of our partners to try and solve their problems. We have a big, broad dev support team that works closely with Bethesda—and with all of our partners—to work with them to solve that any sort of issues they have along the way. Of course, I always want everything to work always for everyone. I can’t promise any kind of resolution or timeline but can say that everyone involved is trying their best to get this stuff working.”
Whether or not Sony’s intervention helps – whether or not Dawnguard, an expansion our review thought well of, releases – remains unclear. Boyes didn’t indicate that Sony had only now jumped in, offering a solution better than anyone at Bethesda has been conjure up; it’s entirely possible the two have been concerting since Dawnguard appeared troubled back in July – or even earlier. We’re hoping there’s a panacea up someone’s sleeve somewhere, but like Pete Hines before him, the Sony VP couldn’t make any promises.
Throughout all the frustration, however, it’s good to see the two companies remain neighborly, if nebulous. PlayStation 3 owners won’t stop debating who deserves their angst until the content releases – paying for a game that advertises the same experience as its Xbox counterpart, they’d be justified in doing so – but with each passing week, Dawnguard looks like it needs all the help in can get.
Ranters, are you glad Sony is assisting Bethesda with the development of Dawnguard? Does it improve the odds of the DLC’s release?
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Follow me on Twitter @Brian_Sipple.
Source: Kotaku
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It sounds interesting. Maybe Bethesda will remember this. Sony coming to their aid.
They will. And then they’ll remember the large sum of cash Microsoft offered them for an exclusivity deal.
Maybe this news will shut the Bethesda-nay-sayers up.
So sony can develop third party content like that? Sounds like they were messing with skyrim as well to try and find a solution.
If you’re having skyrim problems, I feel bad for you son. I got 99 problems but Dawnguard aint one.
xD
Guess I better dig skydim out of the trash bin just in case.
my main concern is what this means for ALL skyrim dlc for the ps3. if they can’t get dawnguard to work will we ever get any dlc for the ps3? also what is it about this dlc that makes skyrim into such a ram hog all of a sudden? (i was told that was the main issue)
Bethesda is being a p***y. Dawnguard will work for PS3, but Bethesda says “it’s not good for everyone.” But if they knew Skyrim wasn’t good for everyone on PS3 and they still released it, why wouldn’t they release Dawnguard for PS3?
@Matt
Skyrim’s base game is probably way more stable than the Dawnguard dlc. And maybe they didn’t realize how unstable Skyrim was until so many people experienced and discovered it. They shouldnt release it if they know how bad it is, how many developers catch flak for releasing broken games nowadays? How often do people attempt to call this trend? The backlash for that would be larger than not releasing it at all IMO. They’re not being pussies.
What I’m saying is, if they release Dawnguard and its as stable as a table with one leg; you, along with damn near every other gamer, will call them lazy and claim to know what’s really going on.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/02/16/bethesda-knew-the-ps3-version-of-skyrim-could-run-into-a-bad-memory-situation
Bethesda did know that PS3 players could have memory issues with Skyrim pre-release, it’s just that they didn’t know how severe it was going to be.
I feel like Dawnguard is stable enough for most people. The quote “good for everyone” sure makes it sound like it’s a small percentage of testers experiencing problems. But since the same situation happened with vanilla Skyrim pre-release,not releasing Dawnguard on PS3 just doesn’t make sense to me.
*”not good for everyone”
Maybe Bethesda should give Naughty Dog a call. They, among countless others, seem to have no problem with the PS3.
@Reality,
Naughty Dog isn’t making an rpg, or a game as large as Skyrim. Skyrim is arguably the largest console game available. As players progress, more RAM is used. Different combinations of things cause the game to crash. Remember when the book shelf was crashing the ps3 version? So just think, the game could be crashing or suffer severe instability which is probably very difficult to detect because there are so many possiblities in Skyrim. It could be a common weapon or a workbench causing it crash. It could just be that after a certain length of play, data stored needs to be deleted and they can’t find a way to do it without crippling the game. Who knows? All I know is Naughty Dog would most likely not have a solution. If Sony ends up not being able to help, which I’m sure they’ve been trying much longer before it made news, then I doubt it’ll ever get done.
I just don’t get it. How does a hardware giant like the PS3 fall flat on RAM? I mean, I’m a 360 gamer, so I don’t have these problems, but even I acknowledge that Sony put out a more advanced product in terms of hardware. What, Sony didn’t think all that RAM would be needed?
lol isnt it something ridiculously low like 256mb?
Supposedly lol and something that under powered is supposed to simultaneously process every npc action, every location, and every rendering across all fifteen square miles of map in the game? Like Momma always said, don’t bite off more than you can chew. You just might choke.
More-or-less, I believe the Playstation had utilized some divided memory pool between the GPU and CPU. Each had 256mb of ram.
That’s what I don’t get. Considering the level of detail in the current gen consoles, you’d think that more memory would be a no-brainer.
I do have one question. Does the PS3 use virtual memory to compensate?
I think this type of stuff is just going to cause me to go over to the xbox. I have been a ps guy since the beginning and I am tired of the second hand stuff with sony and the games we don’t get because xbox was smarter.