While Microsoft has done away with its “daily check-in” requirement for the Xbox One, that’s not the end of strange new digital firsts for the system. Witness Forza 5, which even when you buy it on disc, needs to download more of the game online the first time you fire it up.
Sounds crazy, but Turn 10’s Dan Greenawalt tells IGN that there’s actually a fairly sensible reason behind it:
So when you first boot up the game, we’re going to ask you to log in. And when you log in you’re going to get the Drivatars and you’re also going to get a whole bunch of content: tracks and cars. Our production schedule is such that we are putting them in as late as possible and that means making them free as downloadable content on Day One.
Before you say “but that’s just DLC”, nope, you need to get online and download this before it’ll let you play the game (though remember, with both new consoles you’ll be able to play while you’re downloading).
The days of a video game ever being “finished” are well and truly behind us, folks.
Forza Motorsport 5 Requires One-Time Internet Connection [IGN]
Comments
59 responses to “Forza 5 Isn’t All On The Disc”
seriously stop re-posting stuff you posted yesterday
bet you tomorrow it will be something about sonic and about a philippines artist
Unless I am mistaken, the XBone have a Blu-Ray drive. What what does this game have the exceeds the capacity of a Dual-Layer Blu-Ray disk? The medium is much cheaper now so would it kill them to have a second disk?
This isn’t a case of them fitting the content on a disc. It’s just easier for them to deliver half the game (or in this case just the game engine by the sounds of it) on disc and have the other half downloadable. It means they can speed up their development pipeline and ship the game earlier, rather than wait until the game is 100% complete and then have a month of no work while the game is getting manufactured/shipped.
Not advocating for this btw, I think it’s horrible business practice, just explaining.
It’s all lies. The real reason is DRM. If you can’t play the game off the disc without signing in and downloading the rest, you can’t pirate the disc can you?
Having an extra month is bullshit because the certification process of the extra material would take almost that long, so if it is to be ready at launch they would not be able to wait too long after the disc had gone gold before submitting the extra material. I’d say an extra couple of weeks, tops, which would be basically shipping time to retail.
The quote in the article suggests it’s more a problem of scheduling rather than space. I guess they’re pretty keen to hit that launch date.
What does your statement have to do with the size of a blu ray?
It’s stating that they’re putting the final touches on things so late that the disc will already be printed and shipped so people will have to download the last piece of the puzzle to make it a “complete” game.
This issue isn’t the size.
They’re behind schedule. Plain and simple. Rather than delay the game (which is what they SHOULD do), they’re going to give us an incomplete disc that requires us download the rest of the game to actually play it.
Poor form Turn 10 and Microsoft.
@everyone: Sorry about that. I mis-read the article the first time around and though it another one of those ‘cost saving measures’.
Some responses have suggested the game should be delayed and all of you are right.
To those who have suggested that this is a good idea as it means the developer is kept in the job, that is not how the real world works. If they are without work, that is the harsh reality of the market place. They can either keep a queue of clients or seek additional clients near the completion of the product.
If I handed my work in and told my client the user will automatically download the missing code when they first use it, what do you think will happen to me?
If I am not allowed to do it (and I’m a self-employed software developer) then why should the big AAA development houses be allowed?
Edit: Poor grammar, I am not having a good day…
Because they’re a triple A dev house and their game hitting date could influence the XBONE launch. They make millions of dollars for their company. Microsoft feels it’s important… There isn’t much more to say. I mean if you really want to feed the delusion triple A teams and random softare developers are somehow comparable financially then sure, try your luck.
Professional conduct matters irrespective of field.
Regardless of the product being a Web site or a video game, the end product is expected to be properly made, expertly tested and delivered in complete form.
This is actually pretty interesting and could be a new game changer for the future. The developer is getting to maximise their development time, rather than being done and having to wait or work on DLC. The latter of those two we see uprising against every time a developer announces their game is finished but not coming out for 2 months. Instead they’re going to work on the core game for as long as possible.
Sounds really interesting but, of course, there is the downside of day 1 patch that is going to take forever to install on launch day
But even while its installing you still get to play the single player game……im happy with this
A day 1 patch is hardly a game changer – it’s been going on for years, and for pretty much the same reason as this – because developers/publishers are rushing to hit a particular date, either to get it out within a particular fiscal quarter or, in this case, to hit a console launch date.
Exactly this.
Seriously this isnt news or a new practice. Day 1 “must have to play” patches have existed for some time across multiple platforms. not saying I like it, but lets just put things in perspective please.
“The days of a video game ever being “finished” are well and truly behind us, folks.” – Poor, Luke you are just fear mongering.
And for years they have been unacceptable and sometimes it is questioned if they really are patches. I personally maintain that some are dummy downloads so the number of users can be counted against the number of sales. If there are more downloads of the day one patch than there are of sales/stock the publisher jumps on the piracy is killing the industry (dead) horse.
This isn’t just a day 1 patch. This is required for the game to even run. That’s a pretty big difference. And what happens down the road when they decide they don’t need to maintain the servers anymore? This isn’t buying a game… It’s renting one.
so regardless of what they’ve said, there is no option to play the Xbone completely offline
Well you can play offline after you’ve downloaded it. And this is jus referring to one game, not every single XBone game.
Well, yes there is, this is just one game, what do you want MSFT to do? Force them to put all the content on the disc so there are no day 1 patches?
Have we really gotten to the point where we expect a game to not be playtested enough that patches are brought out on day one?
Anyway, this isn’t about a patch, this is about certain portions of the full game not being available on a disc. Why not release the game digitally first and then on disc in full at a later date. Yeah it’d frustrate some people, but it’d frustrate people more if they buy a disc and then realise they also need to download however much, I’d assume 5-10GB, on day one. Of course, this is so they can rush the game out for launch so I’d assume that the date they’ve been given they probably can’t meet
Its for the multiplayer part of the game and you can even play the single player part of the game………will it really upset people?
Wrong spot
And while I agree, my point is that this is Forza’s issue and not Microsoft.
Why not? I payed for a product and I expect to be complete and properly tested. Is that really so much to ask for? It wasn’t a problem before the turn of the millennium.
While they are legitimate concerns, my point is that the issue should be taken up with the Forza publishers and not Microsoft.
Forza is made by Turn10 – who are owned and published by M$
That’s now how business works though, they’re separate divisions. Have an issue with Turn10? Take it up with Turn10, instead of voicing your concerns at a generic “Microsoft” which is an entire corporation with hundreds of different divisions.
I think when you’re on a gaming site talking about a game developed and published by Microsoft, it’s pretty clear that when somebody says “Microsoft”, they’re talking about the gaming division. Just as when people talk about Sony, they’re talking about Sony’s gaming division, not the corporation as a whole.
Yup – nice point Mr Braaains.
You said it should be taken up with the PUBLISHERS of Forza 5 – that would be Microsoft. Did you actually mean the DEVELOPERS then? Either way the developer/publisher relationship often means that some of these decisions are made by both parties or by the less obvious party. Remember that this may have been decided when the XBox One was to be online full time – at this point in the games development it may have been too late to change this without breaking something in which case both Turn10 and MS are to blame.
Not taking sides here – not sure I will be getting Forza 5 or even an Xbox One at this point – just pointing out that this decision may not have been entirely made by Turn 10 and at any point a publisher has a say and in this case it is Microsoft (could be worse – could be one of EA’s disasters).
Well, yes.
It was made clear that everyone has to go online and download a patch to get rid of the DRM anyway, so if there is still any online requirement, it’s that…. And besides, don’t forget that during development, Turn10 assumed every xbox would be going online; so it’s fair to say that this was a decision they took because of that and it’s just too late to backtrack on it due to the development schedule.
Anyway, I Personally don’t see this as bad; I mean even PC games these days often require a one-time online activation, so I don’t have a problem with it. 🙂
The next x-box sure sounds like it is geared for those with unlimited bandwidth.
Yeah we just clicked over our 200gb limit with 5 days to go before the it flips. Thats our dsl2 connection. The fiancée and I are currently building a house on a block that will have the nbn on it by september next year (the contractors are paid and the materials bought, so even if the coalition win, this suburb will still get the FTTP nbn) and the best deal I can find is iiNet with 500gb peak/500gb off-peak for $99.95 per month.
Hopefully that covers our needs…
So long as their servers don’t shit the bed on release day…
You can pretty much bet on that happening. Xbox one seems to be gearing up for the Sharknado of launches.
I’m pretty sure xbl servers can cope. This isn’t simcity or diablo, this is xbl. Haven’t failed me in the 6 or so years I’ve been a user. Wasnt it 300 000 servers and growing.
Disregard this comment – being moderated.
Why are you people trying to hold things back??
We get the game SOONER. The dev team are able to make changes up to RELEASE DATE. How is this a bad thing?! Don’t have access to the internet? Don’t buy the game. Really want the game? Work out how to get internet access once.
Want to sit on the internet and whinge about needing the internet? Piss off.
It’s not ideal, and in a perfect world I’d like to see Microsoft at least give them a slap on the wrist for making a mandatory download (the Forza 4 downloads were a few gb’s each so I’m expecting this one to be substantial).
At the same time, these sorts of things happen with launches and if you give me a choice between:
A/ Launch games with bugs/ less content
B/ No Forza 5 at launch
C/ Forza 5 at launch, w/ content and a large download.
I’m taking ‘C’ everytime!
That said it’s a lot different once launch passes. I want my Forza 5 day one but Forza 6 should be released “when it’s done” and that means most of the content should be on the disc.
Agreed I see nothing wrong with it, there’s been other games with day 1 patches…..who cares?
As a Forza fan, i’m disappointed. I don’t want to pay full price to receive half a game, and no-one wants to wait stuff knows how long to download X amount of data that should have been there in the first place.
If the game won’t be ready in time, then delay it until it IS ready.
After the disc installs, you should be able to start playing single player immediately (apparently), while installing the other content in the background. Both the xbone and ps4 are meant to have the “play immediately” while installing the rest in the background features. Saying that, how well it works (long it takes) on Australian internet remains to be seen.
Im not a big driving fan, but you can pretty much guarantee that this will be the case for most of the launch titles on x1.
This is quite possibly the worst form of DRM. Customers without a large enough data quota to download the game will be unable to play it and pirates will just be able to merge the download content with the on-disk content making a full release available with no internet connection needed on day 1. If the pirates are getting a better service on day 1 than the paying customer then you are doing it wrong!
“pirates will just be able to merge the download content with the on-disk content making a full release available with no internet connection needed on day 1”
What? How the hell would that work.
How the hell would pirates get the disc AND the online content before day 1….. and even if they did how would they modify the game so that you could put both together on one disc and the game would know where to look for the files……. and even if they did both those things, how the hell would they distribute them to people WITHOUT the internet?
Unless your local market stall has a bloke with significant programming experience, equipment to merge and burn blu-ray discs so they are compatible with a console which isn’t even out yet AND early access to both Forza 5 and the online content…. I don’t think your plan to get a hand-delivered magic disc is going to work.
As for it being “the worse form of DRM”? As far as I can tell you put a Forza 5 disc into your Xbone and it directs you to a server where you download the files. As long as you don’t have to enter a single use code or something like that I don’t see how this in any way allows Microsoft to digitally manage their content.
It’s a pain in the ass, yes, but it makes me so f*cking angry people having a hysterical whinge about “DRM” without putting any thought into what DRM actually is.
And where are you going to get your pirated version from? Oh the Internet that’s right – so instead of downloading 100MB you can download 10GB!
Mmmm that’s service!
At least you know that you are getting the WHOLE game in ONE step rather than putting in a disk so you can beg for permission to download the game!
Isn’t this kind of the same with Battlefield 3?
I know I had to go online to download a massive file to play it in HD because it didn’t fit on the disc.
If I remember correctly the HD files were on the disc, they just needed to be installed to the hard drive for the game to make use of them. Although I’m speaking for 360, no idea about other platforms
If this were a matter of it being a game too big to fit on the disc.. fair enough.. but when it’s because the production team couldn’t meet a deadline.. well that’s dropping the ball. However, as long as it is clear that you’ll need to download it before you can play; as long as it says how big the files will be BEFORE you buy it; as long as it’s a ONE-OFF online requirement.. then it’s all good.. if on the other hand even one of these things is not correct… then I await the shit-storm that will follow.
Is it about a missed deadline, or is it about Microsoft wanting as many launch titles as possible for the Xbone and pushing developers to release games early? I guess we’ll find out if developers follow suit.
Seems like the always online requirement coming back to bite us gamers.
You can bet this has nothing to do with missing deadlines, and more to do with the ‘Always online’ requirement.
Its basically making the disc useless, turning it into a glorified serial number.
And there goes taking your shiny new copy of forza 5 to your friends house to play, since his internet is terrible, and no you cant just take your xbone, because the rest of your family is playing it.
So… The game, as delivered on the disc and purchased at a store, is incomplete and does not work. How the hell can it pass QA / certification then?
They do it with MMO’s all the time.
They just whack a big sticker on the front stating that it requires an internet connection.
Xbone games SHOULD come in three different sets of packaging. Currently they do 2 different sets for the 360. Green for without Kinect and purple for a game that requires Kinect. They should add another colour for cloud/net required (blue or something). That way people that don’t have the net can just buy the other 2 colors… Pretty easy right?
The Previous Forza game had a separate install and data disc due to size of DVDs IIRC, but the game still worked without installing all the extra cars etc from the data disc… you just didn’t get to use that extra content.
Do any one of you actually remember getting Forza 4 for the first time? There were day one updates and also (optional) content to download. This time Forza 5 is not much different.
so does this mean the game is half price? 🙂
So they basically took the DRM Always on internet connection off the console and put it one the games.. well played Xbox, GG