Speaking in an interview with Edge, pulled from this month’s mag, Yoshida said that it wasn’t easy to make a system that “just works” and admits that they got some of the things with PlayStation 3 wrong.
“We’ve been criticised all the time for people having to wait to download patches,” he says, “or for firmware updates, and we are gamers as well so we know exactly what people have to go through on PS3.”
“So we wanted to really make it a focus so that our developers in Tokyo and the US who work on system software and such features were really thinking about some of these experiences,” he said, referring to their work on PS4.
Hopefully the PlayStation 4 will make all these updates a lot more background-based, and less intrusive to the user experience.
cc_star
Good to hear. It’s pretty embarrassing on PS3.
Whilst I’m long used to it as a mild inconvenience, setting up my Dad’s new PS3 brought it home as to just how unwieldy the situation is.
dizwod
Does it matter? Just download a patch when your not desperate to play a game. or just cancel the patch download completely?
gazzagb
But you can’t play online or be signed into PSN then. It was a stupid system, glad Sony have recognised that.
ron_mcphatty
I’m not sure it was stupid, the hardware was just built around certain limitations back in 2007 and some things never got ironed out. Background firmware and update downloads and also installs would be amazing, I can imagine a game being backgroud patched during the opening cinematic would be well a received accomplishment :)
xdarkmagician
Yes, well, when you get an invite from a friend to play a game, you start up the game and youre hit with a patch, sometimes its just a little patch, sometimes its not and it ruins your night.
Theres not alot of people that have enough free time to check for patches and download and install them for every game they have just so they’re ready to play anything at a moments notice.
TalllPaul
Patches don’t bother me too much but when I got a new PS3 and went to play GT5 there was about 25 patches I had to download first followed by the game install. Pretty ridiculous.
Tuffcub
Well that’s kinda Polyphony’s fault, not Sony’s.
Linton5zero
Do what I did, buy GT5 Academy Edition(its likely to be around £12 or less now), put the disc in and there was only 3 patches, and one of those was for the recent car hacks
Bilbo_bobbins
SO is this a hint of always online so that the PS4 automatically downloads patches/updates etc?
I hope not. But I have to say it annoys the hell out of me having to download a 2GB patch on the day of release of a major game. Games should be finished before being released, and should be tested better.
Eldave0
Yep. Patches should be a rare occurrence where an unforeseen bug reveals itself shortly after launch. Instead, most games are shipped out the door completely unfinished as devs know they can put things right at a later date. Incredibly unprofessional (not to mention a pain in the arse)
Airiaen
No, it probably be like Steam so I don’t see how that would lead to an always online system?
bunimomike
They should do it like Steam. If you leave Steam running then all patches come down. However, if you have 40 games installed but only want 20 or so of them updated you just set the others to “no updates” and then do it manually if you return to a title but never wanted to delete the initial install. Job done!
bunimomike
The updates are pushed out to us and maybe, with the PS4 and the prevalence of an ever-increasing online world, it shouldn’t be part of PS+ for the coming generation. Hell… or this one.
Bilbo_bobbins
Totally agree with that, if there was an option then that would be great. In this day and age it should be an automatic thing included.
CR8ZYH0RSE
Totally agree bud.
Origami Killer
This was one of the main advantages of Plus for me. The fact you could download game patches in the background whilst playing a game offline was really handy. Now most of the time I just don’t bother with the patches unless I’m really desperate to play online. It’s not necessarily Sony’s fault when EA releases a 2GB patch for BF3 though is it?
hol
No, not when the patch is actually the DLC they want you to buy!
TSBonyman
Not all their fault really, i can’t remember the last time i saw a game release that didn’t need a day one patch – heck, even demos have to be patched these days. Hopefully background patching on ps4 will ease our ‘suffering’ a little.
JBoo
More like –
Sony Was “Criticised All The Time” Over…’EVERYTHING’ they done PS3 wise LoL:D
Hopefully the PS4 can be like the PS1 & PS2 days i.e Buy game, stick game in PS4, Play game & no f**king about waiting around(sometimes)…Ahh those were the days;)
xdarkmagician
I don’t know about your PS1s and 2s but I remember watching an awful lot of loading screens on mine. :)
The Von Braun
Having to download patches that had put in 3DTV+Move support fot PS3 games i wanted to play online or use online features of…when i owned niether was a real bloody ball ache and they should have been optional.
Bug fixing is 1 thing, but forcing people to download something they’ll never use is like Bulls Eye awarding a speedboat to those who lived miles from the coast, something of a mockery….
Scythegpd
For the first half of this generation I think that sentence can be shortened to “Sony was criticised all the time”.
Still, not saying it wouldn’t be nice to be able to update and play at the same time.
Looks like they’ve learn a lot from this gen. Hopefully it doesn’t turn out to be another Home, a lot of fanfare and hype ultimately resulting in a damp squib. Would be great of, with the PS4, they realise some of the original (good) ideas like the trophy room and war room!
xdarkmagician
I don’t blame Sony for patches, its not like only games on the PS3 get patches. And I actually like firmware updates, they bring some pretty awesome stuff for free… but their maintenance is horrible. The frequency, the duration, and the communication is terrible, they’re getting better with their communication but when the store goes down for maintenance for a day I expect it to run a little bit better when it comes back online. Plus, while I realize in a 24/7/365 world its tough to find down-time that doesn’t affect someone, but some of their maintenance time is during hours and days that seems to effect everyone