After being gone for a week, I’m back. A big thanks go out to Duff, my partner in Crime from the GamerCast Network forums for ranting in my place while I was away. Excellent job Duff! That said, let’s get down to business.
Wikipedia says “In practical terms, firmware updates can improve the performance and reliability, indeed even the basic available functionality of a device”. I’m tempted to add “unless you’re Sony.”
Sony recently released firmware 2.0 to the masses. There was cause for great celebration and dancing in the streets… wait, no, I guess that’s not accurate at all. If they’d released the enhancements people were sure they were going to release, that might be the case, but instead, we got a rather underwhelming collection of updated features. That is, unless you’re Ubisoft. The buzz on “teh interwebs” is that Assassin’s Creed may not like firmware 2.0 very much at all and is hanging fairly frequently for some users. Other PS3 owners are reporting slowdown and hangs in the XMB itself.
I’m sure it’s not just me, but there is most likely one of two things going on here and I don’t particularly care for it. Either Sony is botching (or ignoring) their QA process in the hopes of getting updates and features out in a timely, buzz-sustaining manner, or they just lack the resources and/or skill to do the job right. And sadly, this isn’t the first time it’s happened this year. At the end of the day, Joe Consumer isn’t going to care whether it’s Ubisoft’s fault their game crashes or Sony’s fault their firmware update causes the game to crash; they’re just mad because THEIR GAME CRASHED!
Anybody that was in the Warhawk beta can attest to the crapstorm that happened after they released it and an updated firmware caused some sort of conflict with the code leading some users to experience crashes very frequently (sometimes simply launching the game would cause your system to hang). A developer that’s worth anything knows that when you update a product (or firmware), you need to expand and improve without hosing up legacy code. You don’t just update your OS and have random older things crash. Why does this seem to be happening now?
Now don’t get me wrong, I test software for a living, I know how difficult it must be to regression test every feature of the OS/firmware on the ever-expanding list of models Sony’s putting out. It’s not an easy task at all. But the one thing they need to make absolutely sure they do is test their code and not release it until it’s ready. Microsoft had had a tough time dealing with problems that many attribute directly to rushing to market. The last thing Sony needs to do is fall into a “me too” race with platform issues. Some people see these problems, mandatory updates (if you want to log into the Playstation Network), and monthly updates and they just get turned off to the whole cycle really quickly.
Personally, I haven’t been bitten by any of the recent issues, but I hate to see them continuing to take two steps forward, one step back (yes, I really mean two forward, one back). They’re making progress, but it would sure be nice to see some progress that’s not tainted with regular stumbles. Sony has a long walk ahead of them as it is… have you been bitten by firmware update introduced bugs on any of the platforms before? Share your tales with us.
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7 responses so far ↓
1 Dexyn // Nov 19, 2007 at 3:08 pm
Okay…I have the early adopted (60GB with Firmware so-and-so). So I understand that recently there has been an uproar of problems and complaints within the Sony Community. My take? Where’s this problem you’re all seeing? I have 2.0, I have Assassins Creed, and I played it for 5 hours straight without a single slow down or hitch. I just don’t see what everyone else is dealing with. Even you’re not experiencing these issues. So, I’d love to see the problems, but not on my console, which seems miraculously solid.
2 Sean "rothbart" Workman // Nov 19, 2007 at 3:15 pm
In the internet age, it doesn’t take a ton of people, it only takes a few reports and some sensationalistic people to propogate them. Sadly, I’ve played my part in this.
On the other hand, I do know a couple people from the GamerCast Network forums that have experienced very real issues they feel are directly related to firmware updates, so the issue of firmware induced problems still stands.
3 Dexyn // Nov 19, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Snap, well, I guess I should look into this. I don’t mean to sound arrogant in my own rants, it’s just that, it’s just hard to believe without evidence. They are, however, working on these hitches with Firmware 2.1, but I’ve heard nothing of what the direct fix is. Only that it will fix issues concerning some of the people with hitches.
4 Hollywood // Nov 19, 2007 at 5:36 pm
2.0 was a bit of a joke. Even the sony fan boys who swallow every thing sony shoves down their throats had problems swallowing this load.
5 Sean "rothbart" Workman // Nov 20, 2007 at 3:28 am
Hollywood: 2.0 was a .06 upgrade from the firmware before it.
Also, I should note that firmware 2.01 was released tonight to address the stability problems.
6 mrpuggywuggy // Nov 20, 2007 at 8:43 am
2.01 fixes some problems but a lot of people on the official ps3 forum are having big error problems with call of duty 4 online mutiplayer mode when using firmware 2.01 so a 2.02 update maybe just around the corner.
7 Anski // Nov 20, 2007 at 11:25 am
While I was playing Assassin’s Creed on my 60GB PS3, I had it freeze on me twice.. once in combat (everything froze up and I had to restart my PS3) and once while I was just running along (music and camera control were still available, but nothing else was moving. I gave it a few minutes and got impatient and reset my PS3). That was it for me. I had this habit while playing the game to just pause it when I slept/went out instead of turning off my PS3, so literally the game was on for days with something like 12 hours playtime on a Saturday. No hitches other than those two random freezes.
A few days ago I let my roommate play, and it froze up four times on him within 3 hours.
I have no idea if it was Sony’s fault of Ubi’s, and really no one seems to be sure either way. Either way, I was still pretty upset that while trying to show my friend this game it freezes up on him so much, and obviously makes him feel like the game sucks and has a lot of bugs.
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