When news of Control's next-gen upgrade arrived last year, it was confirmed not to be leveraging Smart Delivery. Instead, players were forced to purchase the game again if they wanted to play on Xbox Series X|S. It was a controversial move, and one publisher 505 Games has now acknowledged it could have handled "in a much better way".
In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz (thanks, VGC), company president Neil Ralley spoke about how "certain decisions restricted how [505 Games] could perform Smart Delivery for the next-gen version of Control".
“Every transition from one generation to another creates challenges for both development and publishing. The Smart Delivery option, if I can use that term to generalise, was something we hadn’t faced before as an industry. For Control, we made certain decisions restricted how we could perform Smart Delivery for the next-gen version of Control.
They were the correct decisions at the time, but they created those blockers. We were unable to backtrack and reorganise how we were developing the Ultimate Edition for there to be a sensible and fair way to do Smart Delivery."
Looking back at how Control's upgrade was handled is something 505 Games is said to have "learnt a lot from". Games such as Ghostrunner and Assetto Corsa Competizione will be receiving free next-gen updates over the next few months, with the publisher declaring they're handling those in a "much better way".
“We learnt a lot from that. Did we as a publisher handle it in the best way and communicate it in the best way to the audience? Maybe not. But we did our best to satisfy consumers. Moving forwards, we will be able to do this in a much better way and you’ll see that in the next examples that we’ve got with Ghostrunner at the end of September and Assetto Corsa in early 2022. I’m very confident that we’ll handle that in a much better way.”
It's great to see the publisher has learnt from its past decisions. While we appreciate it was a tough call, consumers undeniably felt ripped off having to buy the game again for a few extra visual upgrades. Fortunately, if you've yet to buy it, Control Ultimate Edition is being sold for an ultra-low price this week as part of 505 Games' 15th Anniversary Sale on Xbox, available for just £13.99 / $15.99. Grab it while you can!
Happy to see 505 Games acknowledge the handling of Control's next-gen upgrade? Let us know in the comments below.
[source gamesindustry.biz, via videogameschronicle.com]
Comments 11
Doubtless they felt the ire of the early adopters, and that ire tarnished their reputation, and it is good to see that they acknowledge this. It's also possible that other Developers saw the way in which 505 just went ahead regardless, and decided that they either wouldn't want that heat, or could handle it (as with seemingly most Sony exclusives).
Learning from the mistakes you, and others, make is important, and is likely why we are seeing so many game delays following the Cyberpunk 2077 debacle, wherein the game was released too early, and for a generation that simply couldn't run it at a reasonable fidelity. For us gamers, Developers learning these lessons is a good thing...
It is, what it is. I bought control on xbo. A while later got control awe for super cheap, for the series s. Life goes on, no ire from me in the slightest. But this hfw, man, that's another story
Wasn't very happy with the game on my base PS4 and the upgrade path. I waited till this week to buy the UE on XSX (chose the Xbox because of the other Sony price shenanigans). Sony doesn't seem to learn from it, instead, make it even worse with HFW.
Not only did they charge for the upgrade, but also, it looks awful on the Xbox Series S. It's 60 fps, but the resolution and image quality are abysmal.
Retrospectives are always nice! Happy to see this
I bought Control at a pretty good discount, about $20. Then they announced the upgrade and it bugged me enough to hold off until I could get it at another discount. All told I think I still paid less than $60 for both and I got the expansions, so I've made my peace with the whole debacle lol.
At least some companies can learn from such things.
Yeah already bought it on ps4. Not willing to buy it again for series x. There are other games.
Before Control UE (XSX) came out, I reached out to 505 and asked if my save would transfer from the standard version (XB1) so I could play the DLC with raytracing, they said yes, so I pre-ordered UE. They were wrong, saves do not transfer, I complained, and they eventually made it right with me. Not a great experience, but it turned out okay in the end. And by "okay" I actually mean "okay" as the solution was not ideal, but much more acceptable than the "sorry, too bad" response I got from them initially.
I’m going to call horse doodie on this. They actively went out of their way to block free upgrades even in PS5 where they a leven accidentally enabled free upgrade downloads.
This was not about technical limitations as much as a business decision.
And “Did we as a publisher handle it in the best way and communicate it in the best way to the audience? Maybe not. But we did our best ” might be one of the most face palming lines I read in a long time.
It's great they learned. Are we getting our money back?
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