Alex Evans, co-founder of Media Molecule, revealed to VG247 at the EG Expo that the delay was to place some necessary day one patches on the Blu-Ray instead of making people download them:
With the surprising number of consoles that are not connected to the Internet because of a lack of broadband in the area or other reasons, I think this is a smart move on Sony and Media Molecule. Releasing a patch on the first day the game comes out to fix something that could tarnish the experience for players would go by unnoticed by offline players and potentially ruin their enjoyment of the game.
Taking the extra time to make sure the game is working properly off the disc is something that more companies should do. For example Nintendo’s Metroid: Other M recently shipped with a game-breaking bug, and since Nintendo has no way of patching the issue, it has caused a lot of confusion. I imagine the helplessness that Other M players are feeling is similar to what offline HD console players experience when they miss out on some important update because a game developer figured they would fix an issue after release.
So Ranters, what are your thoughts on this? Should these companies worry about the audience without their consoles online? Or are you fine with release day patches?
LittleBigPlanet 2 is scheduled for a January 2011 release on the PS3.
