DRIVECLUB / 10 DEC 2014
SONY AND EVOLUTION 'EMBARRASSED' OVER DRIVECLUB LAUNCH
PlayStation UK boss Fergal Gara has admitted both the company and Evolution Studios is "embarrassed" over Driveclub's launch issues, and used it as an example for why games should be delayed if they're not ready.
Speaking to IGN in London earlier today, Gara offered an apologies to Sony fans, particularly in light of the decision to launch the PS4 under the "4ThePlayers" slogan, and promised the PS Plus version of the racer wouldn't be released until Sony is sure it won't suffer a repeat performance.
"It’s a disappointment," he said about the server troubles. "When you lay your soul out as being '4ThePlayers', then what you certainly don’t want is games that are not fully ready. It certainly wasn’t any ill-intention on behalf of the team. It’s ambitious as a game; they’re as embarrassed as we are and all you can do in those situations is say sorry.
"We apologise to any players affected and are doing our damndest to make things right. So that’s what we’ve been doing and the game is pretty near-complete now. We don’t want to introduce the PS Plus Edition until we’re confident the servers can take the load.
"Unleashing it on the millions of PS Plus users is the next step, but we want confidence in the capacity and concurrency figures. I’ll say again: we apologise and are trying to sort it, and we’ll hopefully learn from it so we see it less in future."
Unfortunately, when it comes to avoiding such situations in future, Sony's in a bit of a "damned if they do, damned if they don't" scenario. Though Evolution has insisted delaying the game wouldn't have helped, there are those who believe the studio should have done just that. Of course, on the other hand, plenty of early adopters who picked up the new consoles when they launched back in November 2013 feel this year hasn't really offered anything to justify the purchase as is. Delaying these games even further wouldn't have been received well.
When asked for his take on delays, Gara acknowledged them as a necessary evil, before going on to explain that it's pretty typical for games consoles not to hit their stride before the second year as developers become more familiar with the tools at their disposal.
"[Delays] are always frustrating, and it’s certainly never our intention to sell a false promise," he says. "You work with the best information available at the time. It’s the right decision to delay but, of course, to delay and then have issues is certainly not ideal, but it’s better than releasing a broken game.
"I really believe it’s year two when you tend to see those titles come through that start to define the whole generation. The best is yet to come on PS4. We’ve seen a brilliant start with the mega-franchises, like the FIFAs, Call of Duties and the Assassin’s Creeds, but we’ve also seen some strong new IPs launch – the likes of Destiny and Watch Dogs. But I think that the ones that are truly to define the generation are probably still to come, to be honest.
"I mean you look back and there wasn’t really a truly memorable title on PlayStation until ’96, so a good year after the European launch and getting on for two years after the Japanese launch. It shows that it does take some time for a platform to mature and for developers to make the best of it. In fact, you look at PS3, two of the highest-rated games of the entire cycle came in the last year withThe Last of Us and GTA 5. So it’s a great sign of how things can progress over several years."
@Front 2 Back =
SONY AND EVOLUTION 'EMBARRASSED' OVER DRIVECLUB LAUNCH
PlayStation UK boss Fergal Gara has admitted both the company and Evolution Studios is "embarrassed" over Driveclub's launch issues, and used it as an example for why games should be delayed if they're not ready.
Speaking to IGN in London earlier today, Gara offered an apologies to Sony fans, particularly in light of the decision to launch the PS4 under the "4ThePlayers" slogan, and promised the PS Plus version of the racer wouldn't be released until Sony is sure it won't suffer a repeat performance.
"It’s a disappointment," he said about the server troubles. "When you lay your soul out as being '4ThePlayers', then what you certainly don’t want is games that are not fully ready. It certainly wasn’t any ill-intention on behalf of the team. It’s ambitious as a game; they’re as embarrassed as we are and all you can do in those situations is say sorry.
"We apologise to any players affected and are doing our damndest to make things right. So that’s what we’ve been doing and the game is pretty near-complete now. We don’t want to introduce the PS Plus Edition until we’re confident the servers can take the load.
"Unleashing it on the millions of PS Plus users is the next step, but we want confidence in the capacity and concurrency figures. I’ll say again: we apologise and are trying to sort it, and we’ll hopefully learn from it so we see it less in future."
Unfortunately, when it comes to avoiding such situations in future, Sony's in a bit of a "damned if they do, damned if they don't" scenario. Though Evolution has insisted delaying the game wouldn't have helped, there are those who believe the studio should have done just that. Of course, on the other hand, plenty of early adopters who picked up the new consoles when they launched back in November 2013 feel this year hasn't really offered anything to justify the purchase as is. Delaying these games even further wouldn't have been received well.
When asked for his take on delays, Gara acknowledged them as a necessary evil, before going on to explain that it's pretty typical for games consoles not to hit their stride before the second year as developers become more familiar with the tools at their disposal.
"[Delays] are always frustrating, and it’s certainly never our intention to sell a false promise," he says. "You work with the best information available at the time. It’s the right decision to delay but, of course, to delay and then have issues is certainly not ideal, but it’s better than releasing a broken game.
"I really believe it’s year two when you tend to see those titles come through that start to define the whole generation. The best is yet to come on PS4. We’ve seen a brilliant start with the mega-franchises, like the FIFAs, Call of Duties and the Assassin’s Creeds, but we’ve also seen some strong new IPs launch – the likes of Destiny and Watch Dogs. But I think that the ones that are truly to define the generation are probably still to come, to be honest.
"I mean you look back and there wasn’t really a truly memorable title on PlayStation until ’96, so a good year after the European launch and getting on for two years after the Japanese launch. It shows that it does take some time for a platform to mature and for developers to make the best of it. In fact, you look at PS3, two of the highest-rated games of the entire cycle came in the last year withThe Last of Us and GTA 5. So it’s a great sign of how things can progress over several years."
@Front 2 Back =
