Konami Decide Against Fixing The Broken 360 Game They’ve Sold

Konami has sold a product that they know is broken. Silent Hill HD Collection was thrown together by Hijinx, not actually in a hurry – it took them two years – with some old unfinished code because Konami didn’t bother archiving the finished code when they completed the games originally. That port was not exactly what you might call smooth.

They’ve sold a broken game, with code they admitted back in May wasn’t final. Users demanded that the product they paid for was repaired, Konami agreed and said they’ll make a patch to ensure it works as it always should have. That was months ago. Now, Konami has said they’re not going to bother with a patch for the 360 version (although the PS3 version was already patched and the publisher says all issues were fixed on that platform).

The official reason they’re not bothering to make good on the product is because of “technical issues and resources”. So basically, making patches is difficult and they don’t want to pay for it. What a thoroughly reprehensible attitude to take towards their customers. Their fans.

Might it be reasonable to assume that they don’t want to pay Microsoft’s fee for the patch? Given Polytron’s recent similar move with downloadable Fez, that seems faintly plausible. Regardless, if you don’t want to pay the price of publishing on a platform, don’t publish on it. Consumers aren’t there to pay for your laziness, lack of ability or shortage of responsibility.

The official statement includes the following laughable line: “Konami apologizes to any players who are continuing to experience these issues on the Xbox 360 SKU”. So, they’ve taken your money for a broken product which they won’t fix – ever – but now they’re sorry. So that’s okay, right?

Ordinarily, when sold a broken product, you could return it to the retailer and expect a full cash refund. That’s the UK law. But the game came out in March so it might not be reasonable to take this route (although, certainly worth a try).

I suggest you start with Konami’s UK customer support website and don’t stop until every single penny of your money is back in your pocket and Konami’s piece of junk is in the bin where it belongs.

Oh, and guess what? They’re going to continue selling the broken 360 version of the game, that they’re never going to fix! What a load of shameless crooks!

43 Comments

  1. like i’ve said many times, they’re quick to take your money, but slow to take responsibility.

    seriously, this whole industry is taking on a, customer comes last, mentaility.

    it’s short term, short sighted thinking, and it’s what will put these companies out of business.

  2. LOL at the sub heading. Very true though, and anything short of a full refund will be a blatant disregard for their customer base, possibly a breach of some trading act after announcing that little snippet!

  3. To be honest, it’s not so much the fact they’re not going to fix it that does it for me – it’s a dick move but from Konamis perspective I can see what they’re saying.

    But to continue to sell a product they know is deeply flawed and bugged to hell? If that’s not criminal it bloody well ought to be. Fingers crossed retailers with any clout shove all unsold copies back to the publishers to be buried with ET.

  4. I played this on the PS3 BEFORE the patch, and didn’t have any problems apart from minor lip sync issues, but nothing major. Nothing that would make me sell the HD collection. Think people are just being picky.

    • Same here, i haven’t experienced half the troubles other have complained about. The only major problem i had was a bit of lag when in silent hill(sh3)

  5. Scandalous.

  6. Thesixthaxis…I would *love* to see this same article but about EA Sports and FIFA Football for the PS Vita, which has had a glitched trophy since release in March. EA are not going to address that either

    • I wouldn’t expect any fix – they will just release a new one next year.

      speaking of…yesterday was out shopping and went into a cash converter type place and I counted over 200 old PS2 FIFA sports games on the wall – if there was ever an argument for a digital release only game it would be FIFA – I bet if I went to every charity shop, game store and cash converter type places in my area I could find enough FIFA games to build a house from…that’s a really scary thought.

      • and the thing is, i bet if you tried playing them all without seeing the disc and if the in game titles didn’t show the year, you’d probably never be able to tell which version you were playing either

    • Well Crytek were the exact same with Crysis 2, there ‘play online 6 months after your first time online’ trophy was glitched (a bulls**** trophy at that) but only difference was Crytek took out the finger 9 months or more after release when the fans hounded them for it to be fixed.

      sick of buying broken games.

  7. Wow what a pack of thieving s****!

    What is happening with the gaming industry lately, it seems they want to rip us off at any given opportunity.

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