Rare Gambles On Dark Discs

Next Generation reports on the risky choices Rare made with Perfect Dark Zero. They actually began stamping the discs before the game was certified so that they could make the Nov. 22nd launch date. From the article: "The certification process is the final stage a game goes through before manufacture. Microsoft's team picks through the game making sure there are no bugs, that menus all work correctly, and that there are no compatibility issues. Games that fail, even in the smallest detail, are sent back to publishers and developers for changes. The process can take days, or even weeks."

Comments

Trickle-down QA

[CrazyClimber]

I wonder how this would trickle down to development knowing the risks involved. What would happen to the developer who introduced the bug that caused X discs to be destroyed and the game re-certified. How about the tester who missed the developer's bug?

Re:Trickle-down QA

[Castar]

I don't think it would have much effect. I don't know Microsoft, but I used to work in Sony's "Format" QA department, the last line of testing before games got sent to Sony Disc Manufacturing for reproduction. Our job was basically "certifying" the games - not testing the gameplay, just making sure that it fit all the rules for games released on the platform, about a week-long test cycle.

Frequently, developers would want to hurry the process along so they wouldn't miss their ship date. Mostly, this meant overtime for us to try and get the full test cycle completed in time, but occasionally developers would want to start the print run before we were finished (and this became much more noticable with titles that offered 'patching' functionality over the network, since the feeling was they could fix any serious issues that way. That might be why MS was willing to take the risk, I imagine that Live allows them to patch games to some degree.)

Our attitude towards these requests was basically 'OK, but it's on your head!' If the producer chose to push the game through, we all knew that it wouldn't be on OUR heads if we missed something in the abbreviated test cycle. The producer (or whoever) made the decision and chose to take the risks. I imagine the development crew would feel much the same way, although they have a bit more of a personal stake in it.

Re:What's the issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

As has already been so eloquently intimated, Rare is owned by Microsoft. Even leaving that aside, it's not technically feasible to run a noncertified game on a console since the console will _require_ that the game be signed by Microsoft's private key to boot. Unlike the case you cite, it's not going to be possible for Rare to forge the digital signature required without this private key. Which of course means that Microsoft's publishing division was complicit in this scheme, giving the go-ahead for Rare's disc to be signed before the final QA certification was complete (most likely on the strict condition that on failure the discs would be destroyed).

Re:This is about gameplay and interface, not conte

[Gulthek]

So playing cool videos of the game (a feature I enjoy) and using consistent language isn't good?

So a newbie who knows that his memory card has 40 blocks or whatever and the game says 40 Kb; that would be ok with you?

"least" favorite?

[jgoemat]

I think all of those are good ideas. Auto-pause if a controller is unplugged is a great idea. Consisten language in messages is a great idea. Why would you want users to see "LAN ERROR" in one game, "NETWORK PROBLEM" in another game, and "SYSTEM LINK DOWN" in yet another for the same problem? Most menus already abide by the last thing you mention, a menu that didn't would be stupid. I can't think of any reason one of those would be bad for someone playing games. The video might be annoying to some, but it would also prevent burn-in of the menu for people with Plasmas...