Day 1 console updates

[NoOther]

I'm equating it because if you literally buy a fucking PS4, and bring it home and do not plug an internet connection in, it will not be able to play DVDs or Blu-rays. What about that do you NOT UNDERSTAND?

The part where you are buying a NEXT-GEN console primarily devoted to an ONLINE experience. One where its previous generation required several updates, including needing some updates or you couldn't continue to use certain services.

But other than that, I guess it is silly to me to think someone would shell out $400+ just so they could have a Blu-Ray player...

 

[zamardii]

So for this generation, games and consoles seem set up for Day 1 updates right away. The Wii U had a 1 to 2 gig update initially to bring the online features up. The PS4 will require a day 1 update to even enable DVD and Bluray playback at all, Remote play on the Vita, DVR functions, facial recognition, and all online functions. Hell, even the games are falling into this trap, with Forza requiring a large download, and Killzone requiring 7.5 gigs to be downloaded just to play the first level, with more to be downloaded while you play (Edit: this was based on a mistaken interpretation of a news post. Killzone does not require a day one update for the disc copy in hindsight, that makes more sense).

What happened to releasing games/consoles with all the features and functions enabled out the damn gate? I feel like game companies are abusing the online connectivity features. Thoughts?

I don't know if OP knows this, but Day One updates to consoles are probably the single greatest thing to ever happen to videogaming. Why? Well, before when you would get a console, all you got was what you had. There were no updates to the Playstation 2's functionality after it shipped. There was no software updates for the Gamecube.

The reason these updates happen is so as consumers, we can get our hands on the hardware sooner than later. Otherwise, all these features would have to be left out by launch or you would have to wait a lot longer to get your hands on a console. Remember that the PS3 is only 7 years old, but technology is growing at a exponential rate compared to 7 years ago. With the amount of time it takes to tweak custom UIs, to finalize hardware, test, pack, and ship across the globe... these are no problems but rather good things. The reason those features are left out of the units being boxed as I type this is that they required additional tweaking and troubleshooting. So by the time you open your box and plug your console in you can be rest-assured (hopefully) it will work as well as possible. Between the time the final hardware is agreed upon and begins manufacturing and the main UI is complete... there are months and months until the actual release of the console. So in that time you better believe they're finding problem after problem after problem and fixing them and compiling them into a update for the system. They're doing the same thing over at Microsoft too.

The only bad news here is that you may have to wait a little longer to play Killzone or Dead Rising 3.