Microsoft “Costs Not An Issue” In Patching Fez

Tuffcub 12 Comments

Last week Phil Fish from Polytron said they would not be patching Fez because Microsoft “would charge us tens of thousands of dollars to re-certify the game.”

Microsoft has released a statement to Kotaku which seems to tell a different tale.

Polytron and their investor, Trapdoor, made the decision not to work on an additional title update for Fez.

Microsoft Studios chose to support this decision based on the belief that Polytron/Trapdoor were in the best position to determine what the acceptable quality level is for their game.

While we do not disclose the cost of Title Updates, we did offer to work with Trapdoor to make sure that wasn’t a blocking issue. We remain huge fans of Fez.

Whoever is to blame, both Microsoft and Polytron seem to have tarnished their reputations by allowing this to happen and any of their customers to be left with a disfunctional game.

Source: Kotaku

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12 Comments

  1. Hope this doesn’t turn into a lengthy cat and mouse story of throwing accusations around. Both sides are equally to blame, by the looks of things.

    • i hope it does! Makes for an interesting look behind the scenes, if more details are spilled.

      • Good point, I’m on board for that!

  2. Polytron – you should strive to keep your title as enjoyable as possible, even if that does mean forking out to update as per Microsofts terms / conditions of publishing on Xbox LIVE.
    Microsoft – this product is being sold on YOUR platform, regardless of where Polytron are as regards updating the title – you should push to make sure Fez is in its most stable and enjoyable form.
    Now stop the arguing before I bang both your heads together!

  3. Now now children!

    • It is very much “he started it!”, “no, he did!” isn’t it?

      Question is, who do you send to the naughty step?

  4. Don’t see what more Microsoft could have done, or rather should have done.

    Polytron chose that path because it best suited their needs, that the particular benefits of XBLA as a platform outweighed its negatives, when those negatives cropped up they cried off. Despicable behavior for their paying customers.

    Microsoft looked to have moved to have eased the situation & still Fish would rather write a whining snidey blog post about the details of what he agreed to in order to benefit from their game being in such a spotlight.

    Wonder if other devs would be looking at what MS mean by “making sure cost wasn’t the issue” will they too be now knocking on the door for help with costs that was presumably in the terms they’ve already signed up & what the negative impact is of weakening that income stream & the support they’re able to provide.

  5. After this, will anyone trust Polytron again? Especially thier boss. If your game needs fixing, you fix it surely, especially if you know the problem.

  6. While Polytron is seemingly lying, I still find it completely weird that Microsoft is the publisher of this game and isn’t taking care of Q&A costs. They’re practically just a distributor at this point.

  7. I wonder if the patch would be given more priority if everyone started looking for a refund.

  8. Not surprised, Phil Fish is a ego-maniac to listen to, I wold not trust that man with ANYTHING.

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