Fallout 3: Bethesda doesn’t care about PS3 owners
In a recent interview the head of Bethesda Software bragged how great of a job the company is doing supporting the gamers with DLC. One of the execs at the studio indicated that they have nearly perfected the best DLC strategy. However, I am sure there are about two million PS3 Fallout 3 owners that may beg to differ.
Fallout 3 is probably one of the best action adventure RPGs to hit the market in recent times. The game not only received rave reviews but sold extremely well, with over 4 million units shipped. However, the studio did receive a bit of flack from fans of the game due to the company’s decision to splinter its fanbase by playing favorite to the Xbox 360.
According to rumors, Bethesda Software inked a deal with Microsoft to bring out three expansion packs exclusively to the Xbox 360 version of Fallout 3. The planned DLC included Operation: Anchorage, The Pitt and Broken Steel. I have actually played the first two DLC on the Xbox 360 this year. Broken Steel won’t be coming out until the middle of this year.
According to Gamasutra, Peter Hines, VP of Bethesda Studios took a jab at the big software publishers by stating that “they” do not think about software titles in the same way Bethesda Software does.
He stated:
They have these large number of titles and they just don’t think about them like we do, whereas we do something like Oblivion or Morrowind.
We don’t give up on our stuff, ever. There is always a market and a niche and people out there who are willing to buy it.
However, it sure seems like Bethesda Software gave up on the PS3 version of Fallout 3. The company has yet to release a single piece of DLC for Fallout 3 on the PS3. It seems like the company has ignored it, for all intents and purposes, which is a bit hypocritical. It looks like the guys over at Kotaku feel the same way as well.
PS3 owners can live without the first two DLC for Fallout 3, but I strongly feel that all Fallout 3 owners should at least get the opportunity to play Broken Steel. The third DLC is about the final resolution between the Enclave and the Brotherhood of Steel.
Since Broken Steel ties up one of the biggest loose ends in Fallout 3, I am a bit miffed by the fact that this is even a DLC when it really should be part of the full game. This situation reminds me of the Tomb Raider incident where the developers took out part of the game and charged Xbox 360 owners for the DLC due to an agreement with Microsoft. It all seems a bit unfair to everyone, including those that can’t even buy the DLC and those that have to buy it.
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69 Responses to “Fallout 3: Bethesda doesn’t care about PS3 owners”
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April 13th, 2009
If they follow the same road as oblivion, and combine all the DLC into a hardcopy expansion, as well as rerelease a GOTY version with it all packaged just in time for christmas, then I wont be too upset. I got too many games on the go to worry about what I am missing for fallout 3.
April 13th, 2009
I don’t care about them either.
April 13th, 2009
How much is each expansion vs hours to complete?
April 13th, 2009
Great entry – I don’t own either a PS3 or Xbox yet, but I’m looking hard at Bethesda’s support for both consoles in making my decision. That, plus the status of the mass effect games, is likely to sway my decision one way or another, but right now it’s too close to call.
Not to be picky, but you have one mistake in your article:
“It seems like the company has ignored it for all intensive purposes, which is a bit hypocritical.”
The correct phrase is “for all intents and purposes” – writing “intensive purposes” is a common mistake based on hearing but not having read the phrase, since they sound almost identical.
The more you know…*ding!*
April 13th, 2009
“It seems like the company has ignored it for all intensive purposes…”
This is barely a sentence. This should read:
“It seems like the company has, for all intents and purposes, ignored it.”
Serious question: How much do you guys get paid to write this stuff, and how can I land a gig doing it? Honestly, it doesn’t seem that hard.
-Arvis
April 13th, 2009
maybe bethesda doesn’t feel like paying sony to release content on PSN yet. xbox live doesn’t charge the devs or publishers for content released.
April 13th, 2009
ARE YOU FOR REAL KEV ?????
April 13th, 2009
or it could be the more obvios reason that ms bought the exclusive.
How much space does the expansion take up?
April 13th, 2009
how much will M$ overcharge you for a new 100 gig hard drive? No wonder they are leading the exclusive DLC charge.
April 13th, 2009
Oh great, the “this should be part of the full game” argument again… heaven forbid the people that created a top notch game should add more to it later to advance the story.
On that note, nothing is perfect the first time around… especially titles here.
“Fallout 3: Bethesda doesn’t care about PS3 owners”?
If this was true then they never would have released their games on PS3 in the first place… besides if Sony was profitable enough they could have spent money to have exclusive downloads for this game on their console too (or instead) but it seems they are not, or maybe they just don’t care about Fallout 3 fans?
Title might as well read, “Sony doesn’t care about Fallout 3 fans”.
Microsoft beat Sony to the punch on this one, but as Jofa said, their will probably be a GOTY edition in a year or so for Fallout 3 fans who had the misfortune of only getting a PS3.
Arvis, it is not hard, just click on the link “submit a story” link on the above left to find out more and get started on your “intensive purpose”.
Barnabe, about a buck a gig, definitely pricey, but I didn’t mind too much, as it was the first serious piece of kit I’ve had to buy since launch over 3 years ago. My 20 gig was still working fine, and still would have for these DLC’s, but I had the money and bought it for the convenience of not having to do a couple of deletes every month or so.
On another note, Netflix is awesome on it as well… $8.99 a month unlimited subscription gets me all the movies I can watch on DVD through the mail and streaming online (I really do not need to “own” any of these movies, as even the best ones I’ll only watch every few years), so I don’t need cable tv either (I don’t have to watch everything as soon as it comes out either).
April 13th, 2009
Thanks for the tip, Carl, but I don’t work for free.
I just don’t see how that Netflix thing is a big deal. $150 a year to watch streaming, low-res movies? I just don’t see the appeal.
-Arvis
April 13th, 2009
Hi Arvis,
Thanks for the catch, we actually have a copy editor that goes around and cleans things up a bit but sometimes theres a lag.
At times when typing fast malapropisms can happen.
As far as breaking into the gig, if you have prior journalism experience that helps.
I’ve written quite a fair number of white papers for Software Quality Engineering on things like offshore ROI and Agile software Development best practices. Have had great editors to proof read my stuff.
I use Netflix alot but the only complaint is that it only has old movies. I’ve been fairly impressed with how quick PSN has been with movie turnarounds, seems like they get it a day or two earlier then DVD/Blu-rays sometimes.
Rented “The day the Earth Stood Still” over PSN the day it came out.
Netflix has been good when I decided to rewatch all the old Rambo movies in a row, it was a slow Sat.
April 13th, 2009
No prob Arvis, but they do pay if you’re work is accepted.
It isn’t a big deal, as I had Netflix before anyway, watching several more movies for much less money than other rentals. Your quality depends on your connection, so most of mine are DVD quality. So, if you already have Netflix anyway and wanted to watch movies instantly, it is nice to not have to hook up the HDMI to the laptop, then switch from Firefox to windows, then log in, etc., etc. In other words, the process is much more streamlined and convenient for those who already have Netflix.
April 13th, 2009
My title would be “PS3 owner(me) doesn’t care about fallout 3 – oblivion was/is better”
April 13th, 2009
Was that a good movie Mike? It just arrived today on DVD through Netflix and was wondering. Surprisingly, Netflix is good about getting me the movies the same day they release as well (as long as I have them in my queue), and the only reason I didn’t get this one earlier is because I was watching others and hadn’t returned them. I was curious, how much do movies cost to rent/own on PSN? 360 has similar options, but as I don’t watch movies more than once, I see it as a waste of money (for me), hence the value of Netflix. If you’re only complaint about Netflix is that it has “old” movies (6mo old?), well the additional free streaming supplements the dvd/bluray rental service you were already getting anyway, and that has plenty of new releases.
April 13th, 2009
Anyway, it is a very welcome addition that wasn’t there before… since I’ve been back I’ve streamed Heroes, 30 Rock, Walk Hard, Maxed Out, Outsourced, and Bottleshock in between sessions of Sega’s Ultimate Genesis Collection and Fallout 3. SW, did you play through Fallout 3? I also loved Oblivion, and though I had remembered Fallout 1 and 2 fondly on PC, did not think I would enjoy Fallout 3, but it is awesome and definitely worth a shot if you haven’t played through it already. It is very similar to Oblivion (especially if you use a sword… shiskebab with pyro anybody?) with a sci-fi theme.
April 13th, 2009
I finished Fallout 3. At the end you have to decide whether to sacrifice yourself to switch on ‘Project Purity’ or send the chick in to do it. I sent the chick in. She wasn’t going to put out for me anyway.
April 13th, 2009
What did you expect? Not even the hookers put out in this game.
April 14th, 2009
DtESS: Pfft.
1. Rules of Engagement and first contact for xenobiological sentients are much more strict.
2. SOP for nanotech is not “shoot from the UAV” w/universal country accents from black and white.
3. Nanotech is invisible.
4. Exponential intelligence is less emotionally involved.
April 14th, 2009
hahaha CarlB
April 14th, 2009
Thats why it’s good to have both Xbox 360 and PS3, have it all one way or another. If you can afford to have both, then do it, this is such a great time for gaming right now, I’m loving it! Whatever system you have be grateful, there is so much good about each of them. More on topic, yeah it’s just the way things work, you not going to get everything another console has, so I don’t see a point being bitter about it really.
April 14th, 2009
360 sold more games for Fallout. Therefore if there has to be a choice between the 2 consoles you’ll pick the one that sold the most.
April 14th, 2009
Wow that was insightful CON. You brought a great deal of insight and knowledge to this discussion that had nothing to do with who has the largest e-penis. But I’m sure we will all take your point on board
April 14th, 2009
Mike,
I was a section editor for my university newspaper, and I took a few journalism classes as well. But that’s about it.
Sorry, I can be really snobby when it comes to diction and grammar.
-Arvis
April 14th, 2009
Spidey – given the fact developers and publishers have gone on record complaining about sony’s forced payment to put content on psn, i’d say it’s not unthinkable….
bah…they could release it later… this has gotten blown out of proportion….
April 14th, 2009
that never happens here
April 14th, 2009
*cracks up* Nice one, Carl!
Kev is right, though, it really isn’t a big deal. It’s not like there is a shortage of video games in the world. Plenty for us to play.
-Arvis
April 14th, 2009
@Carlb – Of course, I own it on 360, and that is why I think Oblivion is better
“Therefore if there has to be a choice between the 2 consoles you’ll pick the one that sold the most.”
What? Another classic from CON.
April 14th, 2009
SW something hard to understand there? Don’t think I could have broken that done any more simple for you but it appears I was mistaken lol
April 14th, 2009
Great turn around there chum… *sigh*
April 14th, 2009
Turn around? You said “what?” Hence the reply. This still too hard for you? lol
April 14th, 2009
Something go wrong with it SW? What happened? I have no problem with my copy…
April 14th, 2009
I liked Oblivion better than Fallout 3. It was a lot more appealing to the eye, and more importantly you can keep playing after you finish it.
April 14th, 2009
In saying that, I think I am going to have to download ‘Broken Steel’. The whole Enclave / Brotherhood Of Steel story didn’t really wrap itself up.
Also, I want to know what happened to that mutant with the minigun who helped me out near the end of the game but didn’t want to hang out with me because of my bad karma. Talk about a snob….
April 15th, 2009
I thought that the 360 version was patched to allow playthrough after the end of the game, in accordance with the first DLC made available. Or perhaps it was included with the first one. I just remember because the PS3 sites were a little active about Bethesda not releasing an unlock patch for the ps3 version as well.
It wasn’t a big deal for me, as I am an habitual game saver, so when I had passed a point of no return, it was easy for me to reload a save very close to before being locked into the final storyline. The level cap increase would be nice, as well as the extra trophies. Getting the platinum trophy was not difficult enough imo.
April 15th, 2009
Jofamang,
It could have, I haven’t picked it up since I finished it. It’s on my list of games I want to play through again, along with Fable 2 whenever I get a spare afternoon.
April 15th, 2009
@Carlb
Nah, same reason as Harry posted. I don’t think the game was bad or anything. I just preferred the ‘fantasy’ ‘ye olde’ enviroment of Oblivion over the barren post apoc. of Fallout.
Just something about wondering around a barren wasteland or a green, tree covered hillside
I’m just a big nancy
Oh, the lack of projectile weapons was nice too (well except arrows/staffs of course)…
@CON
I actually read your post in the wrong context, in that I thought you were talking about a person, when you were referring to Bethesda.
But thank you for sitting back and saying ‘hey I think you read what I put wrong!’ instead of replying by trying to insult my intelligence.
Oh wait…
April 15th, 2009
@Carlb
Nah, same reason as Harry posted. I don’t think the game was bad or anything. I just preferred the ‘fantasy’ ‘ye olde’ enviroment of Oblivion over the barren post apoc. of Fallout.
Just something about wondering around a barren wasteland or a green, tree covered hillside
I’m just a big nancy
Oh, the lack of projectile weapons was nice too (well except arrows/staffs of course)…
@CON
I actually read your post in the wrong context, in that I thought you were talking about a person, when you were referring to Bethesda.
But thank you for sitting back and saying ‘hey I think you read what I put wrong!’ instead of replying by trying to insult my intelligence.
Oh wait…
INCOMING DOUBLE POST DUE TO BLORGE SMILEY NAZI-ISM
April 15th, 2009
Yes, Fable 2 is next on the list… after I get through with Fallout 3 and all it’s DLC available first… okay… that may be awhile.
April 15th, 2009
“Spidey – given the fact developers and publishers have gone on record complaining about sony’s forced payment to put content on psn, i’d say it’s not unthinkable….”
Not surprising that you have conveniently forgotten about developers recently whinging about ms not allowing them to add their content to LIVE because ms wanted to charge for it ???? But then again ms can’t do anything wrong in your eyes…. only sony can do that.
April 15th, 2009
^
Bottom line is that both companies care about one thing when the day is over, your money and how much they can get out of you. Which is to be expected I guess, they are not a charity. Both Sony and Microsoft have their fair share of mistakes and bad PR. For anyone to think either company are angels is just plain ignorant! Nintendo can and has been just as bad.
April 15th, 2009
Totally agree with you. I will stress that I’m not the one who is trying to make one look like an angel !!!!!!
April 15th, 2009
Yeah I know. I was just adding in to your responce from who you were quoting. I agree with you as well.
April 15th, 2009
spidey – yes..that’s terrible… Forcing a developer to get paid for their work…oooo….teh horrorzzz…!!! lol…
by the way, developers are releasing free content on xbox live…. geez….
April 15th, 2009
Is kev caricaturing himself with that language?
April 16th, 2009
Kev you made a point about sony (un-verified) and yet ms had done the same thing …… but according to you, it’s ok for ms to do it.
I have no issue with the points you bring up …except for the ones that contradict yourself and ones that ms do themselves. You then blindly try and defend them and then accuse everyone else of being “fanboys”.
Make some reasonable points and arguments and we can have a worth while discussion.
April 16th, 2009
it’s not the same thing, spidey. sony charges publishers to put content onto their online service, xbox live does not.
April 16th, 2009
kev’s wrong again.
Sony don’t charge for content to be put up on the PSN, they charge for the content downloaded from the PSN.
So any developer could put hundreds of gigs on PSN, but if doesn’t get downloaded then they don’t get charged shit.
Which is quite a clever policy, because if you ignore the PSN then you lose out on a big market with two consoles (PSP and PS3), and will probably mean that devs think less about putting crap on the PSN, and move towards to content that people will actually want to buy to offset the charge.
It’ll probably be interesting to see if more demos appear on the PSN, because if they don’t, then we’ll probably know why…
April 16th, 2009
oh… that’s why PSN doesn’t have as many game demos or trial games… I see.
April 16th, 2009
“It definitely makes us think about how we view the distribution of content related to our games when it is free for us to do it on the web, on Xbox Live, or any other way — including broadcast — than on Sony’s platform,†one publishing source said. “It’s a new thing we have to budget. It’s not cool. It sucks.â€
“Publishers already pay costs for creating a demo, a process that can run six figures. Sony’s fees add a new expense. For a demo that is sized at exactly 1GB and is downloaded one million times, that would add an extra $160,000 that Sony is now charging and that, according to publishing sources, Microsoft isn’t. That’s what could scare publishers from placing content on the PS3.”
“Publishing source: ‘It’s a new thing we have to budget. It’s not cool. It sucks.’
multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2009/03/20/sony-now-charging-publishers-for-ps3-downloadable-content/
April 17th, 2009
I have both systems and they both have comparable amount of demo’s.
PSN have crap loads of free content and pay for content, as does LIVE.
Quote below taken from everyones fav – wikipedia:
Microsoft has especially borne the brunt of criticism regarding downloadable content. They were the first to charge money for it.
Microsoft has since then been known to force developers to release their content at a charge, when the developers would rather release their content for free. Some content has even been withheld from release because the developer refused to charge the amount Microsoft required. Epic Games, a developer known for continual support of their older titles with downloadable maps and updates, believed that releasing free downloadable content over the course of a game’s lifetime helped increase sales throughout, and had succeeded well with that business-model in the past, but was forced to implement Microsoft’s strategy of fee-based downloads when releasing content for their Microsoft-published game, Gears of War.
Also: Since Microsoft popularized the business model of microtransactions, many people have criticized downloadable content as being too expensive, overpriced, and an incentive for developers to leave items out of the initial release. Some criticism stems from the fact that many of the items sold on sites like Xbox Live Marketplace are not downloadable content at all, but are instead keys used to unlock content already on the game disk, people feel as if they are paying to unlock content they already purchased when they bought the game itself.
Some people here want to harp on about how bad Sony is, blah blah, which is fair enough, but they “conveniently” forget about ms own similar issues. I’m just trying to be fair to both sides.
April 17th, 2009
Oh no… don’t want to forget about microtransactions (Sony did follow their lead in many of their own after all), but I was talking about free demos and trials specifically. Microsoft doesn’t charge anything for game trials/demos (which seem to largely outnumber Sony’s amount – pay or free), but Sony does charge publishers for said trials/demos (if not the customer as well – sorry I miss if this was just recently changed).
April 17th, 2009
No Carl, Sony doesn’t charge developers for trials/demos, they charge for content downloaded.
But as you’ve said, PSN doesn’t have many trials or demos, so I guess to many publishers the charge is not a problem.
April 17th, 2009
So you guys want to start an argument on a broad basis (all dlc) then change the goal posts to a smaller defined area (demos/trials) to best suit your points.
I personally have never paid for, nor seen any demos on psn that the gamer has to pay for. At the end of the day, this is something that doesn’t effect you, so why carry on about it ??
CarB, I will add though, that you seem to forget that some of us have both systems and know exactly what each has and offers. I know for a fact what is being offered on both LIVE and PSN. I can tell you that a lot of the new game releases on PS3 will have a demo version available or appear on PSN.
April 17th, 2009
I have to disagree lock_down there is plenty of demos on psn.
April 17th, 2009
Lockdown,
“No Carl, Sony doesn’t charge developers for trials/demos, they charge for content downloaded.”
Exactly, so if they get a million downloads for that (free to the user) content (yes, they did put it on PSN for free), they then have to pay $160,000 which they wouldn’t have to pay if that same content was on XBL instead (let’s say RE5 demo was downloaded 2 million times on PSN, 2 mil on XBL, splitting the recorded 4 million evenly; they had to pay Sony $360,000 and Microsoft nothing). But as you said, PSN doesn’t have many downloads or trials (in direct comparison to XBL… I don’t know but let’s find out, XBL now shows 194 game demos right now… how many do you show on PS3?), and I say this may be a major reason why.
April 17th, 2009
I was just responding to Lockdown Spidey, not trying to start an argument, just get into the discussion. I remember last year a few people here saying they had to pay for some demos through buying a subscription to Qore… here it is:
http://kotaku.com/5012570/sony-introducing-pay-for-demo-exclusive-content-gaming-program
May not be the case now, so if it is not then it looks like they have improved, which is a good sign.
As a potential PS3 buyer (I do still own and enjoy my PS2, and may consider buying a PS3 again when they come down in price… and put full bc back in – and have God of War III out) I like to be in the know on these things.
Again, I don’t forget, and never denied there was “a lot” of new game releases that would have demos on PSN (I take that to mean the yet to be future), I was just discussing what existed at present. And you can find out now if you want to settle it, I just checked, and there is 194 game demos on XBL for free, so if you would just check real quick on PSN to see how many there are? If there are more then I will happily rescind my previous statement that there are more free game trials/demos on XBL compared to PSN.
April 17th, 2009
Sorry this may be a double post, but it doesn’t have to wait for moderation because of the link:
I was just responding to Lockdown Spidey, not trying to start an argument, just get into the discussion. I remember last year a few people here saying they had to pay for some demos through buying a subscription to Qore… here it is:
kotaku.com/5012570/sony-introducing-pay-for-demo-exclusive-content-gaming-program
May not be the case now, so if it is not then it looks like they have improved, which is a good sign.
As a potential PS3 buyer (I do still own and enjoy my PS2, and may consider buying a PS3 again when they come down in price… and put full bc back in – and have God of War III out) I like to be in the know on these things.
Again, I don’t forget, and never denied there was “a lot†of new game releases that would have demos on PSN (I take that to mean the yet to be future), I was just discussing what existed at present. And you can find out now if you want to settle it, I just checked, and there is 194 game demos on XBL for free, so if you would just check real quick on PSN to see how many there are? If there are more then I will happily rescind my previous statement that there are more free game trials/demos on XBL compared to PSN.
Again, sorry about that accidental link mishap.
April 17th, 2009
That is totally hypothetical Carl. No one here, including you, knows what you presented there to be the case.
April 17th, 2009
Wait a sec… do you live in a different country or something? Don’t you have both? Can you not check the number of demos on both PSN and XBL right now? What is totally hypothetical?
April 17th, 2009
I think he was referring to your post about the per gig download fees.
April 17th, 2009
Ah yes… well your right, we still don’t know how reliable the source listed is… but it seems Joystiq followed up less than a week later and confirmed fees exist:
“A publisher of popular PSN-exclusive titles told Joystiq, the fees “are so small [they do] not affect our business or attitude towards releasing games for PSN. The fees are extremely low for PSN-exclusive titles, and only slightly higher for non exclusives.”
April 17th, 2009
“The real concern, of course, is whether this dissatisfaction will manifest as fewer pieces of PSN content. Now that would be decidedly not cool.”
joystiq.com/2009/03/20/psn-download-charges-proving-unpopular-among-publishers/
… but still interested in the number of demos on PSN if anybody has it… it might make sense if it is less…
April 17th, 2009
156 PS3 demos
26 PSP demos
as of like, right now
April 17th, 2009
Carl,
Unfortunately they re-organised the way they presented the content on psn. Demos aren’t in their own category. Content is sorted in the actual game section, ie if you go to the Killzone 2 game area, all the relevant content would be there – demos wallpapers, themes etc. Sorry m8, I’m not that devoted to go to each game section to count each demo available on psn. I will agree that there would not be 190 or so that you said was on LIVE.
And yes, JofaMang is correct. That is what I was referring too.
April 17th, 2009
Wow Jofa,
In the time it took for me to write my reply you came up with those figures ….. Oh well kudos to you.
April 17th, 2009
The game demos section still has an overview of all the demos… only had to count up the alphabetical sections.
April 17th, 2009
No problem Spidey… I probably wouldn’t either… I just went back to the “Game Marketplace”, “Game Demos”, “Browse”, “All”, and saw 194 demos. There are also 307 game videos, 198 arcade games, 197 game add-ons, 234 community games, 27 XBox Originals, and 403 Themes and Gamer Pics. I imagine they had to take off quite a bit of older content over the years.
April 17th, 2009
The totals were at the bottom of each frame so I didn’t have to count them.