I tired of not looking behind the curtain.

October 7, 2007 4:55 PM

Is there a resource to find out what features/problems have been addressed when a game auto-updates on my Xbox 360?

So many games have auto-updated (heaven forbid we call them patches) but they never mention what is going on. I would like to know what is going on when those happen, but I can't find it anywhere online or in the xbox.

posted by Phantomx to technology (3 comments total)

Speaking as a game developer currently developing for the XBOX 360: Nope. There's nothing in the system designed for storing user-readable release notes or anything. You're going to have to rely on individual developers/publishers, or something like Major Nelson's Blog for the big releases. News sites like kotaku often publish release notes, but it's sporadic and not at all universal. I wish all the developers would say what their changes did ;(
posted by JZig at 6:09 PM on October 7, 2007

Also speaking as an Xbox developer, I'd like to say that I just like the sound of the word "update" versus "patch". No real technical reason—I don't like the word because "patch" always seems so negative, where "update" doesn't. We're not perfect, and avoiding negativity helps in our line of work. :)

I'd love a little text area to write a short change list, presented to the user before applying the title update. For the Marathon title update, we fixed a couple of important things we really wanted users to know about.

I suppose it would be possible to do that inside your title, and write a value to the profile's game settings, but it requires you to design, implement, and test a localized release notes display system, when it could just be provided by the Dashboard. And you'd have to work out how not to display the latest notes for brand-new profiles. AND the user wouldn't be able to see the notes before installing the update. :-/
posted by Mikey-San at 8:34 PM on October 7, 2007

Well I guess that's a little disheartening. I guess I got spoiled from my computer gaming days where I could read what all was changed and now I just have to accept things without knowing what they are or get signed out.

Sometimes things just feel like I should be completely thankful that I am allowed to play an xbox as opposed to feeling like it was built for me. (in the general gamer sense)

Thanks for the replies, though!!
posted by Phantomx at 4:04 AM on October 8, 2007