Ratchet & Clank Future glitch may halt play

by Ludwig Kietzmann on Oct 23rd 2007 8:30PM

It looks like the early release of Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction is not without consequence. Shacknews reports that some American PlayStation 3 owners may encounter a glitch which prevents them from playing Insomniac's latest platformer. Unlike the sudden loss of your arms or a critical lack of money, however, you can entirely blame someone in the quality assurance department for this predicament*.

Insomniac community manager James Stevenson describes the issue, which presents itself during the game's setup, as such: "With specific amounts of free space on your drive, you may see a screen that tells you have insufficient space to create game data even though there is plenty of free space on your drive." He remains decidedly non-specific regarding said "specific amounts," but at least the man provides a workaround. If you encounter the problem, "either delete or add about 500MB of data to your hard drive and the problem will go away." You'll know you've won when you can actually play the game.

*Excluding the unlikely circumstance of an insane QA manager capturing you and lopping off your arms. We've heard stories.

Source

Tags: Glitches, Insomniac, Platformer, PS3, Ratchet-and-Clank, RatchetandClank

Reader Comments (127)

Typically, QA testing is done on a standardized platforms. You won't have random amounts of free space in a tightly controlled environment. Aside from testing installs on systems without enough free space, and installing on systems with enough free space, there's probably not much testing on that particular factor. I'd be surprised if something like this was found by QA on anything other than luck.

Good point, likely the same situation that led to the 'Dead Rising' "small unreadable text" snafu on TVs less-than-HD-endowed.

And Capcom wasn't able to correct that either.

I don't think it really kept the game from being highly-ranked and loved, and I don't think this should really factor highly in criticisms of the game or the PS3.

The same thing happened with The Orange Box on the 360...if you had a previous Xbox HL2 save on your hard drive...it told you there was insufficient space and couldn't save...even though you had like 4 gigs left.

It wouldn't go away until you deleted your original Half-Life 2 saves....so this crap happens on the 360 as well.

Wow, I wonder why that info never exploded? I'm guessing that even if Valve was aware of such a problem they wouldn't care enough about the console gamers to acknowledge it. Good Ol' Gabe hates us console folks, you know.

It never exploded because it was on the 360. The only reason this is even making headlines is because it's a PS3 game... that's it.

LOL... this is ridiculous. We're heading for a hundred posts about a minor bug in game and the only reason why is because it's on a Sony system. OTOH, I don't think I've played a game yet on the 360 that hasn't had a patch or even multiple patches. Hell, it seems like I put any game in that hasn't been played in a few months and it's nearly a sure bet that I'll be asked if I want to apply a patch.

This all stems from some humans' needs to see the mighty fall and the meek reign victorious. It's just a reflection on one's self.

Two Generations Ago:

Player: "What? WTF IS THIS? The game glitched and now it will not run! This sucks, I am going to raise hell!"

Company: "We are very sorry, we will refund everyone because we are very dumb."

Now:

Player: "What? WTF IS THIS? The game glitched and now it will not run! This sucks, I am going to raise hell!"

Company: Hay, fuck Q&A and responsibility, we just ship glitch games that will be patched later! Plus, we are going to expect you to fix it player, take this dick up your ass for us?

Player: Yes please! *bends over*

Maybe that's what goes on in YOUR "gameroom..." But over here I usually just download the patch.

@ ill trooper

The whole point of consoles is that they were not PCs were you had to deal with installs, patches and all that bullshit.

I love it how so many gamers take it up the ass with this bullshit its not even funny.

Sidepocket,

Console games have ALWAYS had glitches. Always. And some of them are rather famous (like the minus worlds in the orginal SMB). In previous generations there was no way to fix them though. At best, companies would fix the bugs and put the new version on newly produced games, but current owners were stuck with the glitches. For example, ever look at a bunch of old ROMS? Ever notice how many have version numbers? A lot of those are just different versions with bug fixes. Of course, such things were never advertised to the public.

Then these days you have the additional complication of online play. Though that's not the situation in this case with R&C, the bulk of the patches these days have to do with online modes. Then, of course, games are simply a LOT more complicated these days. You don't have 1 or 2 games making a single game anymore. It's a bit naive to thing that devs are simply lazy today. I'm not saying that's doesn't happen... these are clearly some games that have way too many bugs (GRAW2, as much as I loved it, was bug ridden), but you shouldn't simply assume that devs are always just being lazy with QA or pretend that things were magically better in past generations.

"games making games"... lol. That should read "devs making games".

First off, they should NOT have glitches. That is one of the reasons we buy consoles. They are not PCs.

Second, while there were glitches in the past, you could complain much and many companies would trade you the broken game fro the new one. Happen to me before. They accepted responsibility, now they do not. See the problem?

Get out of Sony's ass and when something stupid happens admit it.

well...maybe that boast about the ps3 being a super computer is coming true....since some of the games need work arounds too run?

I'm sure Sony has all kinds of developer guidelines about how much space can be used and how your data is accessed, and installation isn't as simple as checking space and copying files. I wouldn't be surprised if an install API in Sony's OS is to blame.

I recall having this problem with Fur Fighters on my PC. Microsoft's installer was to blame and required an update, not the game.

*OhJustSomeRandomGuy: "I don't know why QA's the first to get the finger pointed at them. Maybe QA caught it and the devs couldn't figure out how to fix it and told them to ship?"

Or maybe they never even saw it at all.

It annoys the hell out of me when I release a new version of my software that tests fine for weeks, and as soon as it is released, people start telling me on my forum that something just stopped dead cold. Of course, half the time my dev tools cause the problem, so patching it requires me to read through changelogs which DON'T mention anything about a change being made to the tools, so I have to do other people's work for them and make workarounds for changes I didn't know about. What's worse is that my tools are often ported to Windows from Linux, so the devs don't give a s**t if the Windows version has a bug. So long as the Linux version of the tool works fine, there's no problem.

Such is the life of a software developer. In-game glitches are not acceptable, but a problem like this where the product has to interface with some other software is the kind of thing that gives developers nightmares. A lot of times, developers have little control over issues resulting from stuff like this.

Or maybe Insomniac got some intern to write the installer, 'cause, you know, it's a piece of cake. ;)

*Plyx, on Orange Box 360 problem: "Wow, I wonder why that info never exploded? I'm guessing that even if Valve was aware of such a problem they wouldn't care enough about the console gamers to acknowledge it. Good Ol' Gabe hates us console folks, you know."

The sad truth is that the developers that keep their mouths shut take less flack over problems than developers that actually give a damn about their customers. So long as forum 'tards don't blow the issue way out of proportion (like right here), most problems will never get noticed by the public at all.

Boy, is that EVER a sad truth.

Aaaaaarrrrgggggghhhhh!!!! Once again us QA folk get blamed for everything!!!

Seems like a silly bug that got passed over.. Oh well any news is good news right? At least there is a work around, albeit a silly one. Everything is just silly.

/silly

Why does this continue to happen?? Sony has once again made everyone realize why the PS3 is a second rate system!! Even 1st party games are having development problems, WOW!! Oh, well there is still Drakes Fortune to look foward to. That is, if we can play it!!

That's an unfair statement bud. Every console has buggy software; you can't blame the PS3 hardware.

I'm sorry that I had to post again but there are some people making excuses for Sony and Insomniac for releasing a game of this magnatude and say "It's a simple fix so it's ok" that's total BS and shold not happen in this day and age of gaming!! Not to metion this is a BIG title for the PS3 and Sony and company look like total jack A$$es!! Sure WE can fix this ourselves but why should WE have to do this for a game that I just bought and peeled off the wrapping!! Not cool!!

Damn, dude... naive much? You think Nintendo or MS games are magically free bugs? Afraid not. Someone earlier pointed out a major bug with a Pokemon game that caused Nintendo to have to send out new carts to everyone.

why does it even check for available disc space anyway? the ps3's have more hard drive space than they need, and save files are usually pretty small

Because if you don't have enough disk space, and the game doesn't check, it will overwrite other data to install.

So you can kiss your prons goodbye, or your 400 hour game of oblivion, depending on which data happens to be "in the way".

Shit happens...

Its a shame that what so far has been considered the best ps3 game so far doesnt get a metacritic topic.

Instead we can read about all this negativity about a game that's critically acclaimed as being superb.

Probably for the better. It'll just disintegrate into people arguing about the GS review anyway.

Here's one for you guys,
EGM magazine gave R&C:FToD a 8.5, 9.5,and 9.0.

Previous 50 Comments

Ratchet & Clank Future glitch may halt play

Reader Comments (127)

Posted: Oct 23rd 2007 11:10PM Demolira said

Posted: Oct 24th 2007 4:24AM hey buddy said

Posted: Oct 24th 2007 12:07AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Oct 24th 2007 1:40AM plyx said

Posted: Oct 24th 2007 2:23AM Vidikron said

Posted: Oct 24th 2007 2:22AM Vidikron said

Posted: Oct 24th 2007 2:33AM plyx said

Posted: Oct 24th 2007 4:19AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Oct 24th 2007 4:29AM hey buddy said

Posted: Oct 24th 2007 5:03AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Oct 24th 2007 10:47AM Vidikron said

Posted: Oct 24th 2007 10:49AM Vidikron said

Posted: Oct 24th 2007 3:48PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Oct 24th 2007 4:54AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Oct 24th 2007 5:31AM BurntMeatloaf said

Posted: Oct 24th 2007 7:23AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Oct 24th 2007 9:13AM DeadPlasmaCell said

Posted: Oct 24th 2007 9:37AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Oct 24th 2007 11:19AM CaptNink said

Posted: Oct 24th 2007 9:47AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Oct 24th 2007 10:53AM Vidikron said

Posted: Oct 24th 2007 10:15AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Oct 24th 2007 11:54AM Crono141 said

Posted: Oct 24th 2007 11:16AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Oct 24th 2007 11:44AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Oct 24th 2007 12:25PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Oct 24th 2007 1:19PM plyx said

Info

Description

MSRP

Release Date

Genre

Developer

Publisher

Rating

Breaking News

WB conjures up Harry Potter for Kinect this fall

Featured Stories

Silver Lining: I Am Alive's unfeeling world

Game Of Thrones and the paradoxes of adaptation

Super Joystiq Podcast 004: 38 Studios meltdown, Gravity Rush, Civilization 5: Gods & Kings, Dragon's Dogma

Engadget

TUAW

Massively

WoW