Fez and the $40,000 Patch
A few weeks back, Polytron decided to release a patch for their Xbox 360-exclusive puzzle platformer Fez. The patch was meant to address a number of issues from being unable to run the game on older consoles, to simply fixing a series of crashes that can occur in specific situations. Unfortunately, while the patch seemingly eliminated the majority of the issues being experienced by players, a new bug was introduced which rendered certain end-game save files unusable. The patch was quickly pulled but after reviewing the issue with Microsoft, Polytron has opted to once again release the patch as is. According to some sources, Microsoft would charge them nearly $40k just to implement a new one!
Why so much? That’s a great question and I’m not sure anyone has an answer, but it certainly makes you wonder just how supportive Microsoft really is when it comes to indie devs. Ironically, Sony would likely have offered to upload their patch at a fraction of that cost — if they ‘d even charge at all — and Steam would have allowed them to do it for free, at their own leisure even. Suffice to say, I can’t wait to see Fez make the jump from a console-exclusive to Steam when Polytron’s contract finally allows it. It’s only a matter of time.