NBA Playgrounds’ developers explain Switch online patch delay
If you bought NBA Playgrounds on the Switch you could be forgiven for being a little annoyed at the wait for the addition of online play to the game.
It seems the game’s developer, Saber Interactive are a little annoyed to because it’s something with Nintendo’s guidelines holding up the game.
Speaking in a Facebook post, Saber Interactive’s Matthew Karch said that online “has been functional for weeks” but the patch size is causing some troubles with Nintendo. This is exactly the same problem that Mr Shifty had as well.
“Unfortunately there isn’t much update I can provide. There are certain elements of our patch that are absolutely essential but that are out of normal Nintendo guidelines. If Nintendo were to approve the patch it would be released immediately, but we are in the midst of a long process of back-and-forth to get small matters waived. It isn’t that we aren’t working on this. In fact, getting this relatively simple patch out has consumed more of our time than making further improvements in additions to the game. When I say it is entirely out of her hands I mean that. We were put in a position where we needed to get this game out at the same time as the other consoles and because the platform was so new, it suffered in certain areas. There isn’t even a change log at this point – is the same patch that has been sitting there for weeks”.
So why not just make the patch smaller?
“The simplest one is patch size. There are certain size requirements that you can’t exceed in a patch. It took us almost 3 weeks to get an exception to allow our patch to be larger than the normal size. And the reason it is larger is due to the technology we are using and is beyond our control. In fact, we proposed reducing the entire file size of the game from seven gigs to 3 1/2 gigs but because the platform is so new it doesn’t support it now and that can’t be done”
Looks like there are some teething issues all around, hopefully, people won’t be waiting too much longer for the patch.
That (the quotes) sounds like a message either from a PR person or a message that was mangled by a PR person as some of it just doesn’t make sense.
It reeks to me of the developer being diplomatic about Nintendo’s archaic rules and systems. In these situations you’ve got to be careful not to bite the hand that feeds but at the same time let people know where the fault lies.
I’m guessing the publisher pushed the Switch version to launch when it did, which was a horrible decision as v1.0.0 is broken AF. I refuse to play it until the updates lands and it can’t come soon enough.
Possibly – but did the Xbone/PS4 versions require a 7 gig patch? That really sounds like they rushed it out with (clearly) a lot of stuff missing.
Nintendo has been getting a lot of praise about its new policies with games and downloads – it has no issue letting you download a +30gig game. So it has no issue with files sizes or or DLC – just patches like this that shouldn’t have happened.
Be nice if Nintendo did open up the restrictions – but I guess it’s there to try and stop this kind of rubbish happening (incomplete game launches). So is it EA’s fault for releasing an incomplete game, or Nintendo’s for trying to stop this ridiculous situation from happening?