Konami Not Patching Silent Hill HD on Xbox 360 Because, Well, It's Hard

When Konami released the Silent Hill HD Collection back in March, what should have been a celebration of gaming horror classics, Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 3, instead produced a collective sigh, as fans mucked through the countless technical issues within.

These issues were far more pronounced on Xbox 360 than PlayStation 3, and not long ago Konami issued a patch attempting to smooth out the PlayStation 3 version. Now, we know why Konami didn't release an Xbox 360 patch then: they have no plans to ever.

Here's the full statement released by Konami this afternoon:

Today, Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc. announced that while a PlayStation®3 online title update for Silent Hill HD Collection has been deployed for download via PlayStation®Network, plans for an XBOX®360 title update have been cancelled due to technical issues and resources.

Understanding the issues some users are experiencing, KONAMI issued a title update for Silent Hill HD Collection (PS3), which fixed frame rate issues as well as audio-synching and other reported issues. KONAMI apologizes to any players who are continuing to experience these issues on the XBOX 360 sku.

I'd normally take out the registered trademark junk, but if Konami's not feeling up to it, neither am I.

When asked if Konami will be offering a refund program for Xbox 360 owners, the company pointed me towards its customer support website.

Sounds like crap.

That's a shame.

That's unfortunate.

you've gotta love how they just say "yeah you can still buy it worldwide" at the end of the release, right after saying that they're not going to patch its issues

Retailers should dump this game.

hahah what is Konami doing

That's rough, Jesus.

Especially with their plans for any kind of refund program. Come on guys, don't release a product with so many issues, then give up trying to fix it. That's just awful to us, the consumer buying their product... :/

PS3 is looking like the better console each day.

This article has been attached to the Feces concept page and judging by Twitter that was intentional:

We've already had a big issue this generation with developers/publishers shipping broken games, and then having to wait for a patch...

Now we don't even get the patch!

Lovely.

Fuck Konami. I would say I'll never buy their games anymore, but I honestly don't think I've purchased a Konami game this generation.

Oh Konami. There are many publishers that are greedy and manipulative, but I don't think there's any other publisher quite as incompetent as they've been in just the last few years.

What a waste.

Fez and now this?

I am now checking out all the games that have feces in them.

oh fuck.. they pulled a Fez

Maybe the best single image attached to a news story in Giant Bomb history.

At least they made an announcement that they're screwing over owners of the game. Good of them!

poop

Dear Konami, go kill yourself. Best, John.

This is one of the first realisations I have seen of my biggest fear during the current generation. Game companies no longer have to worry about getting games out the door working and of a high quality, and people accept it because, HEY PATCH IN THE WORKS.

Well guess what, there isn't one, they have your money, nyah nyah.

Disgusting, and I predict the first of many such cases.

@mcmax3000 said:

Fuck Konami. I would say I'll never buy their games anymore, but I honestly don't think I've purchased a Konami game this generation.

I would perhaps reconsider my console choice instead. Sure, Konami shipped a broken product, and that's not to be commended... But it's interesting how there have been more and more problems with publishing and maintenance on the Xbox lately.

This sounds like a job for one million troops

@MongoosePL: I think its more he's saying fuck them on principle, not because he has a 360 and not a ps3...

I own both and didn't buy this game, and I still say fuck them. Its filthy they can do this.

Konami has fucking balls of steel to put "Available at retail stores" at the end of that immediately after apologizing for the issues that aren't going to be fixed.

My god, fuck Konami.

How is Konami even still in business?

Maybe Microsoft should make patching things cheaper and easier.

I can understand that the Fez guys don't feel they have the $40K to out another patch. But Konami have not even uped one patch trying to solve ALL the problems with Silent Hill HD. So in the future Konami wont get any cash from me, I'll just borrow the games, or buy them used, anything to get Konami to feel just ass swindled as I feel right now.

I feel like people were way, way more lenient towards Phil Fish for doing pretty much the exact same thing. He shouldn't get a bye just because he's 'indie'.

I assume the technical problem is that patches on 360 are very limited in size compared to PS3 patches. This is a good thing, generally, but when a game is as messed up as the Silent Hill collection is...

Also, they used the word 'sku' as if it is a real thing that normal people say. Fuck those guys.

@SlightConfuse said:

hahah what is Konami doing

Apparently not much!

I don't think they ever patch the HD collection so they still had the free patch.

Thanks for the middle finger, Konami.

@deerokus: People pissed off about their game wouldn't know what the fuck a stock keeping unit is let alone when its abbreviated to sku

I love that dog picture.

@ZombiePie said:

This article has been attached to the Feces concept page and judging by Twitter that was intentional:

Good on @patrickklepek for the proper attachment of pages to articles. = D

I'm so happy that I didn't drop money on this collection. I'll just stick with my original copy of Silent Hill 2.

@Zacagawea: They do other things besides games, like run gyms or some such, I forget.

Oh come on Konami, even Cheetahmen II is getting fixed
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/343248998/cheetahmen-ii-the-lost-levels

Maybe Microsoft should make patching things cheaper and easier.

@stalefishies said:

I feel like people were way, way more lenient towards Phil Fish for doing pretty much the exact same thing. He shouldn't get a bye just because he's 'indie'.

Fish deserves some level of crap for it but I'm more willing to believe that an indie studio doesn't have the resources to do a patch than a company like Konami.

@deerokus: I don't think it could be a size limitation for the patches because there are patches in the 360 that go at least in the hundreds of MBs (like the day-one patch for Battlefield 3), I'm guessing Microsoft is just asking for more $$$.

To the people who ever bought the PC version of SH2 and SH3, do these still work on newer systems? Or do they require a lot of hassle to get working?

@stalefishies said:

I feel like people were way, way more lenient towards Phil Fish for doing pretty much the exact same thing. He shouldn't get a bye just because he's 'indie'.

I think Konami might have a few more resources than Phil Fish.

But I'm not an expert.

@paisan13 said:

I can understand that the Fez guys don't feel they have the $40K to out another patch. But Konami have not even uped one patch trying to solve ALL the problems with Silent Hill HD. So in the future Konami wont get any cash from me, I'll just borrow the games, or buy them used, anything to get Konami to feel just ass swindled as I feel right now.

And, the Fez bug only harmed less than 1% of the users. I still think it's shitty of them not to patch it, but I can sympathize a little bit. This situation I cannot even believe. It seems these problems are for a majority of players. They rushed a product out on a remake of a fairly popular series. Now, they have the audacity to say basically, "fuck 360 owners?" I thought about buying this because I have never played a Silent Hill game and I am interested in doing so, but I heard about the bugs. So, I decided to wait for patches. This has completely turned me off to purchasing this, even on PS3. They can't be serious, right? Cancelled due to technical issues and resources? They're a larger(I hesitate to say that) publisher that has abandoned a brand new game and those who bought it because it will take a little effort to fix. Imagine the outrage if Bethesda did this with PS3 owners and Skyrim. This move just proves to me that Konami is on its death bed and their incompetence will bring them running headlong into that bright light at the end of the tunnel. How far they have fallen.

Technical complications blamed on why only the PS3's getting patched.

Is it just me, or is this sentence completely backwards?

Great. I love wasting money.

This is more scary then most of the recent Silent Hill games.

Well,at least Konami finally broke the silence...

due to technical issues and resources

This could mean anything from "It's too hard for the 3 guys working on it and we don't want to spend the money", to "We want to, but there are reasons beyond our control that we can't".

Konami let a busted version of the game collection go gold and get out the door. Unfortunately not as rare as it should be. The release quality of a game should be higher regardless whether or not day zero patches are the status quo.

In the other corner you have what is basically Microsoft's taxation of game patches and DLC. The idea was allegedly one of quality control, yet I've only seen these policies do more harm than good. Instead of sticking to their guns that acted to discourage poorly developed titles, wouldn't it be better to allow these types of patches gratis of releases on their system, and therefore elevate the brand as a whole?

"Technical issues and resources", whichever company is more at fault, still doesn't serve the customers that fuel their business. Build a better product and for heaven's sake let those people improve their product easily! Maybe there really were unsolvable technical issues. My bet's on money.

@SilentBob251: You're right.

It's kind of hard to watch them shit the bed like this.

@LackLuster said:

Great. I love wasting money.

Kinda how i felt after buying Skyrim on PS3 and it broke to the point where i couldn't play it for what? 2 months? Now we might never get the DLC? This generation is all about gambles.. Every other game either ships broken or gets a glitch that takes forever to get patched or doesn't get patched.