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That is not true. Games released physically for video game consoles must pass platform certification requirements and only then manufacture, distribute, and re

That is not true. Games released physically for video game consoles must pass platform certification requirements and only then manufacture, distribute, and release the game. The lead time required for this in my experience is on the order of 2-3 months, during which time the development team cannot touch the "gold master" build of the game. The build that ends up on the disk is not "completely broken or even mostly empty"; it is what the development team and publisher were satisfied shipping as the finished game 2-3 months prior. Any software, and games moreso, can be improved with more time so the intervening time to release day is often taken up with development of a launch day patch to fix bugs that were triaged to be ok to ship with, and/or to add features/systems/content that just missed the cut before. Launch day patch sizes is more of a symptom of the build pipeline (maybe there is some non-determinism that is introducing larger diffs than are otherwise necessary) or late optimizations (to build packing, asset management, etc) that can force you to download the majority of the game again.

qwertyuiop924 10y ago
>The build that ends up on the disk is not "completely broken ...Well, then. Would you care to explain Assassin's Creed Unity, and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5? I suppose you classify them as "not completely broken"?
- SeanBoocock 10y ago
  Assassin's Creed Unity suffered from a lot of bugs for its PC release, namely graphical glitches on some (not all) hardware. Additionally, it had a number of bugs that could be broadly described as "open world jank": funny physics interactions, NPC spawning issues, etc. The game should have been delayed more on PC to allow for better hardware compatibility testing, but no, I wouldn't classify it on release as completely broken. Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5 was a rushed project and generally poor game. It was buggy but that was the least of its problems. Many people considered it the worst, or at least one of the worst, major releases of that year. I don't think it is representative of contemporary games as your comment would imply.
  - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
    The point is that AC Unity had very serious problems, which would have no doubt been fixed pre-launch in a pre-patch world. Also, if testing is as thorough as you claim, and you actually do have to have a fairly playable game to relase without obvious, terrible, bugs (Unity was unplayable for some on launch, and it was difficult to play for many others because of just how buggy it was), than Unity should have never seen the light of day.

qwertyuiop924 10y ago

>The build that ends up on the disk is not "completely broken ...Well, then. Would you care to explain Assassin's Creed Unity, and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5? I suppose you classify them as "not completely broken"?

SeanBoocock 10y ago
Assassin's Creed Unity suffered from a lot of bugs for its PC release, namely graphical glitches on some (not all) hardware. Additionally, it had a number of bugs that could be broadly described as "open world jank": funny physics interactions, NPC spawning issues, etc. The game should have been delayed more on PC to allow for better hardware compatibility testing, but no, I wouldn't classify it on release as completely broken. Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5 was a rushed project and generally poor game. It was buggy but that was the least of its problems. Many people considered it the worst, or at least one of the worst, major releases of that year. I don't think it is representative of contemporary games as your comment would imply.
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  The point is that AC Unity had very serious problems, which would have no doubt been fixed pre-launch in a pre-patch world. Also, if testing is as thorough as you claim, and you actually do have to have a fairly playable game to relase without obvious, terrible, bugs (Unity was unplayable for some on launch, and it was difficult to play for many others because of just how buggy it was), than Unity should have never seen the light of day.