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Microsoft responds to Polytron's Fez patch claims

David Hinkle — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 22:00:00 EST

Developer Polytron issued a statement two days ago, saying that a save issue affecting a small number of Fez players would no longer be resolved with an additional patch. Microsoft, who Polytron laid the brunt of fault on for demanding an expensive fee to certify and issue the new patch, has now shared its side with Giant Bomb.

"Polytron and their investor, Trapdoor, made the decision not to work on an additional title update for Fez," the statement starts. "Microsoft Studios chose to support this decision based on the belief that Polytron/Trapdoor were in the best position to determine what the acceptable quality level is for their game. While we do not disclose the cost of Title Updates, we did offer to work with Trapdoor to make sure that wasn't a blocking issue. We remain huge fans of Fez."

That last part is perhaps the most interesting, since Polytron claimed Microsoft's price for a new title update was $10,000 - this statement makes it sound like Microsoft may have been willing to negotiate on the price.

In the meantime, you can keep playing an improved post-patch Fez, in the hopes that your save makes it through the whole adventure. Polytron says less than one percent of players have succumbed to the bug.

Microsoft responds to Polytron's Fez patch claims originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 20 Jul 2012 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Polytron bringing back Fez patch, won't fix save issues

Mike Schramm — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 21:00:00 EST

After seeing major issues with a patch released for Fez on XBLA, Polytron and Microsoft decided to pull the patch from servers, returning the game to an earlier version. But now Polytron has posted that the patch is coming back, and it will not, repeat not, be fixing the issue where players may lose their save.

Why's that? It's a numbers game, says Polytron. The patch fixes multiple issues with the game (including framerating and loading problems, death loops, and more), and the save corruption issue affects less than one percent of players overall. Because sending out another patch to fix the first patch would cost Polytron "tens of thousands of dollars" to get the game re-certified by Microsoft, the patch is coming back, and any players thus affected by the save issue will just have to deal with it.

Polytron points to this as a major drawback with Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade service, in that the company charges exorbitant fees to developers to release even free updates and content. "Had Fez been released on Steam instead of XBLA," posts Polytron, "the game would have been fixed two weeks after release, at no cost to us." Does that mean a Steam version is in progress? "Only a few months left to our XBLA exclusivity!" says the company on Twitter.

Polytron bringing back Fez patch, won't fix save issues originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 18 Jul 2012 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Fez patch pulled by Microsoft

Mike Suszek — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 13:30:00 EST

A recent patch for Fez that fixed exploits but also corrupted save files was pulled from Xbox Live by Microsoft, according to an update on developer Polytron's blog. The issues caused by the title update could potentially be resolved by clearing the Xbox 360 cache, though now new players shouldn't be affected.

We reached out to Polytron for comment, and were told the developer will "have more details as we work things out with [Microsoft] after the weekend."

Fez patch pulled by Microsoft originally appeared on Joystiq on Sun, 24 Jun 2012 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Fez patch released, absolutely do not play it

Richard Mitchell — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 11:00:00 EST

The long-awaited patch for Fez has finally arrived, though you may want to hold the fanfare. While the patch does fix a number of glitches and prevents a lot of exploits and problematic "infinite death loops" (eek!), it also introduces a "fairly widespread" new problem, according to Polytron. Specifically, "the save file can be seen as corrupted by the game after installing the patch."

Clearing the Xbox 360 cache "should resolve the issue." If that doesn't work, however, "there is no known workaround." In other words, you probably shouldn't play Fez until Polytron patches the patch.

Fez patch released, absolutely do not play it originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 22 Jun 2012 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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