Mea culpa for 360's King Kong
by Christopher Grant 
{ Dec 14th 2005 at 11:30AM }
In a rare move, Ubisoft head honcho Yves Guillemot acknowledged shortcomings in their Xbox 360 version of King Kong. When played on a standard definition television using Microsoft's next generation console, scenes are often too dark to see. "We have a problem on the 360. The screen is dark on some TVs and it totally changes the experience. When it's dark, you don't see where you have to go," Guillemot said.
Ubisoft used high-definition televisions during development and didn't catch the problem until later. He encourages fans eager to exploit the differences between the console versions to stick with the PS2 and Xbox versions, but does say, "We are looking to see if we can fix the code." With Microsoft's Live service as a delivery system, they could update the game to behave appropriately with standard-def televisions. That's a small consolation.
[Thanks, Fortyseven and Kakairo]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mazinkaiser @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
This is the good and bad of having Live. Sure its great that updates can be made, as long as developemnt doesn't suffer due to the easy ability to provide patches.
fawazr @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
Weird. Just what percentage of gamers have hi-def sets? Is it a number that would convince developers not to even bother testing their games on a standard screen? With all this hi-def talk going on, I really want to know how many people play in 720i/p or 1080i/p. I for one don't, but there must be a massive amount of gamers who do. Otherwise hi-def capabilities wouldn't be such a big deal or such a profitable venture.
Tomahawk @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
Turn the Brightness up on your TV....
Fan @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
OMG THE 360 SUX!
What a POS crash and burn console. Not only does it overheat, scratch your discs and look ugly but it cant even handle standard definition sets properly.. What a supprise..
No wonder nobody here wants to buy this POS console, it has no other use than beeing an overhyped lastgen console with obsolete tech and a BOGUS bc claim.
What a big supprise ANOTER POS product from MS. Get out of the console buisness allready MS, you have done enough work fucking up the internett and peoples computers.
EatingPie @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
Did said "mea culpa" include "FULL REFUND" anywhere in the text?
-Pie
Terry @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
Ugh. Is it too soon to get all nostalgic for the "good ol' days" when publishers made sure their games worked BEFORE pressing the discs and shipping them out. The patches released/days in exsistence ratio of the 360 is sickening. Not having to keep up with this junk is why I favored consoles over PCs in the first place!
Bowser @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
How could they not test this game at all on standard-def TVs? The Lead Tester for this game should be fired over this. What was he thinking? - Hey, we don't need to test this game on the display device that most people will be using. I know their testers probably make a whopping $6 an hour, so it would've cost them about $60 bucks to have a tester play through the entire game on a SDTV (unless they had to buy the TV too, then you can figure about $160 total). What a bunch of morons.
Mazinkaiser @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
Fan,
you're pretty stupid aren't you?
What does the X360 have to do with King Kong not looking good on a standard defenition TV?
It's UBI's fault for not testing it properly and as you see, they will likely send a fix through Live! I don't care what you think about MS or X360, but your comments show how ignorant you are. If you were bitching at UBI, then I wouldn't complain about your comments.
TK00 @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
Wow, talk about a rush job! They didn't even look at it on an SD TV? I guess its cool that they at least admit it, but come on.
Game publishers better realize it will be many YEARS before they can forget about SD TVs.
ill trooper @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
Story link is gone or mistyped...
CorrectingTheStupid @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
Nice Fan!
So why don't you say Sony or PS2 sucks because Ridge Racer Revolution sucked? Nah, I can't have anything to do with Namco who made the game? I think Mazinkaiser was too polite, you're a moron who should never be allowed to have kids! Learn how to read you degenerate.
Mazinkaiser @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
lol@CorrectingTheStupid
Bowser,
I have to agree, someone's head should roll for that mistake! There's no excuse for a mistake like this.
Liger @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
Damn, Ubisoft screwed up on this one! Pretty pathetic guys! Fan, I don't mean to add insult to injury but your comments are some of the dumbest things I've read on this site, and that is saying a lot! CorrectingTheStupid was a bit harsh(not that I disagree with his point), but Ridge Racer Revolution did suck!
dvdguy @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
At least Ubisoft owned up to it, and quickly. Still, not testing it on a SDTV is ridiculous.
I'm surprised Fan left his last name (Boy) off the post.
Mazinkaiser @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
Hey Fan,
you're right, it is MS's fault! MS should test every game ever made for their consoles from beginging to end on every resolution. That way none of the developers have to do any testing for their own products! This leads to your next point that X360 sucks too just because MS made it or because a small percentage of people are having overheating problems!
Did you read into the sarcasm of my post Fan?
1st off, the X360 does not scratch discs if it is not oved while in use; this is common to all disc playing devices that don't have the snap in disc mount, including PS2!
2nd, most of the over heating is by people not providing reasonable ventaliation to the power supply, but hey, we only talked about this 10 times since X360's launch!
Now I'll wait for some fool to call me a fanboy just because I defended MS/X360! Obviously my comments can't be a logical opinion, it has to be some sort of loyalty to a company I have not ties to. Listen, bash MS and X360 all you want, all i'm saying is make your trash talk be based on something real instead of factless ramblings of people who love to spread hate for a system they don't want.
portnoy @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
Welcome to the MS vision of gaming.
Now before you jump down my throat for daring to insult your beloved MS, let me say that, Yes, Ubisoft is ultimately to blame for this type of F*&^up.
However, I think it is clearly indicative of the historical behavior of MS, and through MS, many of the vendors they work with. MS pressures them to get a product ready on a rushed timetable and this inevitable causes corner cutting. MS is not concerned with it because they can just release a patch. Its well known that they consider this standard practice and so its not surprising that this type of thing is happening with the 360.
I'm not saying the 360 sucks or MS sucks or UBI sucks, I'm just saying that the corporate mentality at MS is known for this type of business model and I think we will likely see it increase from 1st party as well as 3rd party apps for the 360. Some people won't care, others will. It will remain to be seen how it effects the overall sales of the 360.
I will likely buy one (my local gamestop says they wont see more units until FEBRUARY), even with these types of problems, but it doesn't piss me off any less. These practices dont RUIN the console for me but they do hurt it in my mind.
Ok, now feel free to flame me......
Mazinkaiser @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
portnoy,
nothing to flame. MS did rush things and they knew they had Live as a means to fix anything that was missed; if you read my 1st post:
"This is the good and bad of having Live. Sure its great that updates can be made, as long as developemnt doesn't suffer due to the easy ability to provide patches."
I agreed with you from the start.
Phranctoast @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
hmmm.. what about the people who dont have live?
i guess they're just stuck with the inferior product.
dvdguy @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
I'm not sure how Microsoft "rushing" things lead to this problem. I mean, all the current gen versions were out same day or before the 360 version, right? Were those rushed?
Phranctoast @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
If anything, they rushed it to coincide with the release of the movie.
well, since they publically realize their mistake , there should be no reason for this flaw in the ps3 version.
snort @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
"all the current gen versions were out same day or before the 360 version, right? Were those rushed?"
This presumes that the dev time on a 360 title is equal to that on a current gen. A very silly presumption.
Mazinkaiser @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
dvdguy,
MS rushing things has nothing to do with this problem. My comment is relative to Live and the X360 launch. They rushed the launch and rushed developer to have games for launch with very little time to use final versions of the dev kits. Live is a way that they can provide fixes (worst case scenario). Its sort of like a trade off. With the ability to add updates and upgrades comes the ability to be more sloppy because they can always fix something small later through live. Thats the point I was making.
Phranctoast,
Silver Live is free; if you don't have high speed, then you can download fixes from xbox.com and burn the fix to disc and the X360 will install them, same as backwards compatability updates.
Mazinkaiser @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
Good point snort.
Question...
Does anyone own this game?
I've played the demo and I thought while the scenery looked beautiful, the game sucked! I wonder if the full game is any good; the demo turned me right off. Maybe that's why we're hearing about this so late after the games release lol!
Jeff @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
"I mean, all the current gen versions were out same day or before the 360 version, right? Were those rushed?"
Any time a game ships with a bug like this, yes, it was rushed.
If all the ports shipped simultaneously but the other ones don't have bugs, then no, *they* weren't rushed... but that doesn't change the fact that *this* one was. If you're a publisher and you say "well, we want a simultaneous launch on all platforms, so even though this one isn't really polished we're going to put it out anyway", how is that not the *definition* of a rushed game?
There's just no excuse for buggy games on a console. You test and test and test and once all the bugs are gone, you release it. There's no acceptable reason to do otherwise. Oh, I forgot, yes there is, and it's called Xbox Live. Because now you just release a patch and all is well, right?
CuddleFish @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
I just got the 360 demo yesterday in OXM and it was too dark on my HDTV to play. The reg Xbox and PS2 demos look fine in 480p and 480i but the 360 demo is way too dark to play in 1080i on my HDTV. I wonder if the patch will fix this too.
C. Grant @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
Links been updated. Thanks Trooper
Ken Edwards @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
What really irritates me is that it seems like NONE of the developers tested their games on Standard Definition TVs. NBA 2K6 is bad at SD, Ridge Racer 6 misses a lot at SD. It is amazing that at this day and age these developers cannot program their games to recognize both 3:4 and widescreen formats.
Don @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
This seems to be rather common with American developers. They make sure that the game is out at launch, at whatever cost, whether it being features cut or having less testing. After the launch of the 360, it will be 3 months later until anymore games will come out for it because all the games have been rushed to the launch date.
Compare this with the Japanese 360 launch. Only around 7 games were available at launch, but there will be new games coming every week or two, like wrestle kingdom next week and doa4 the week after. I think that's much better than a 3-month drought and leads to better games.
Mike Daniels @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
Well, Ken's comments in #27 are starting to make me consider going to the game store I pre-ordered my 360 at and converting the pre-order into store credit.
HDTV isn't going to be a primary fixture in the majority of American homes for at least several more years and the majority of gamers aren't going to plop down another $500 (at minimum) on a HDTV set just so they can play games on the 360.
While I realize the 360 graphics aren't going to be as good on an SDTV vs. HDTV I want to be able to get a sense that there is some improvement over the old X-box. However, if I'm going to be stuck with dark shadowy images because developers can create graphics for only one format (HDTV) then screw it.
Mike Daniels @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
My comments in 29 should probably include the fact that I have an SDTV hook up for my game systems.
Erick @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
I've never been one to get MUCH into PC gaming, simply because I wasn't into having to find a patch after patch after patch...That's why I always dug Console gaming. I got tired reading all the comments, so I'm sorry if this has been said, but, they should fix the code and press a new disc and send out to stores for REPLACEMENT. Using live for patches is a HORRIBLE precedent. 20% of the people (IF THAT) have live on the XBox and it'll be the same on the 360. Many won't be able to get the patch.
Right now, I'm still upset with Sony for their DRM nightmare that was in the press recently. It took them a while, but they will now fully replace the DISC with a new disc without any DRM software on the disc, not just a patch that MILLIONS of consumers are wary of updating, figuring out how to use.
Remember MOST people are still not as (technologically) savvy as the AVERAGE Joystiq reader.
General comment about missing the SDTV testing. I think it was IGN or some other game site, reviewed something like 6 games on SDTVs and GUN and KK were ripped for being dark and others had issues as well. So, UBI wasn't the only developer with problems. Bad bad bad!!!