How could the save glitch POSSIBLY get through the cracks if you've known about the issue since Fallout 3. Because from my understanding, this issue is NOT new.

And secondly, how is this ONLY a problem on the PS3?

To put it simply, this game was made for the Xbox360 and then ported to the PC and the PS3.

I'm no expert, but for whatever reason the PS3 just doesn't deal with an Xbox port as well as the PC does.

They absolutely could have done a better job porting this game to the PS3, the reason they didn't is simple. Profit.

They chose to spend less time and money on the PS3 version to maximize profits.

Personally, I think this will hurt them in the long run.

But that's the thing... a simple play-through of the PS3 version would have sent off red flags. The problem is so consistent that ONE session could show the save files size increase and frame rate problems.

I mean, it's absolute bull that Bethesda released this title with such an easy-to-catch glitch.

I think the Xbox has always been built more like a PC than the other consoles (based on a recent Gamasutra for Xbox's 10th birthday), so that might be it.

You think they didn't know?

Honestly this is probably the best they could get it with the amount of time and money they were willing to dedicate to the PS3 version.

Yes, they released a game they KNEW was inferior to it's same price counterpart...

If you put money on three different horses in a three horse race one will win, one will come second and one will lose. But you get something back no matter what the outcome.

The difference is with a horse race you can't ask for a refund for losing. With software you can.

Then Bethesda is a POS.

Breaking news from the official Bethesda forums!

Created an account just to reply on this matter.
I ran a quick read on different topics on the xbox forums, and it seems that the xbox users are also beginning to report lag/stuttering due to increased save file size. And if I/we complain about the size of our save files an xbox-owner told about some bad frame rate issues and explained that he had a save file of 70MB. that's astounding!

70MB? are you sure?

100%
link http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1291180-every-115-minutes-game-hiccups-for-8-13-seconds/

ok iam wrong about the 100 hours, it just got on my mind while reading all those posts.

The answer is really quite simple. The Xbox and Xbox 360 are designed by Microsoft... the same Microsoft who designed and still designs PC API and general graphical rendering/library software. The reason the Xbox is called the Xbox is because of its heavy use of a DirectX as its API, but they cut out the "Direct" part because "Xbox" sounds catchier than "DirectXbox". DirectX is also, by far, the most popular and widely used PC API and the only one really supported all that much by modern PC developers. Architecture-wise, the Xbox and Xbox 360's hardware are also very similar to standard PC hardware architectures. The Xbox 360 is, with certain differences to the API, practically a 2005 gaming PC in a box. Porting between the 360 and the PC is relatively quick and easy because the two platforms are very similar, programming and architecture-wise.

The PS3 is Sony's creation and Sony, obviously, are not Microsoft and do not utilize Microsoft's software. The PS3's API is a custom hybrid between Sony's own stuff, Nvidia's shading language, and a subset of OpenGL ES. It is drastically different from the 360 and PC's standard APIs and so it is a completely different beast requiring completely different programming. It utilizes a different programming language and needs to be programmed far differently from 360 and PC APIs. In addition, it's hardware architecture is also a bit foreign to 360 and PC architectures. Particularly, its Cell Processor, unique in the gaming world as a gaming vector, floating-point architecture, is drastically different from traditional PC and 360 CPUs in its capabilities, programming specialties (better with floating-point code than traditional, fixed-point code PC and Xbox CPUs), and general structure. The PS3 is very different from the 360 and PC while the 360 and PC are very similar to one another.

So what does any of this have to do with the fact that the save file continuously grows until it breaks the game? I mean, Bethesda KNEW that this happens because it happened during the two Fallouts that were previously released.

That's the only reason I feel that Bethesda really screwed us. They totally knew this was a potential problem, and it's so easy to catch. I mean, they must either be [censored] or just gave us the middle finger on this one. I just cannot believe that this happened. It's ridiculous, and they seriously need to face consequences. I mean, I really hope future Bethesda games bomb though it probably won't happen.

I mean... I never thought I'd say this, but I think I hate Bethesda now worse than I hate EA and Activision. I am that disappointed.

This is entirely inaccurate. While many people are experiencing issues with the lag, many others are not experiencing any problems at all. And even those who are typically haven't been running into it until 20+ hours into the game. So no, "ONE" session would not have shown the frame rate problems even for testers who would have run into it.

Many people have played more than a dozen sessions of Skyrim without seeing a single problem. And while it's easy to point the finger at the size of the save file, that's not 100% guaranteed as plenty of people have fairly larger saves (mine is currently over 10 MB) and haven't seen any of these gamebreaking issues ranted about here. So as of yet we have no real concrete idea what's causing the actual problem itself, it could easily be something the Bethesda testers were preventing without even knowing it just by something they were doing with their systems.

The framerate problem is not as consistent as some folks seem to believe. Relatively common? Sure. But I know plenty of people who've been playing daily since release who haven't had a single major problem yet.

That? I'm not quite sure what this could have to do with that unless it's simply a problem with the way Skyrim fails to take into account how the PS3's SPEs' caches work. The answer I'd be more inclined to believe is that Skyrim is having memory leak issues with the PS3 version and should never be growing to that size in the first place, but is because of an inefficient utilization of file saves and/or a lack of in-game respawn/refresh rates on enough items. Regardless of the saved data file issue, there's also general fps dips, regardless, and those would deal with what I've posted about the PS3's architecture. Essentially, these issues boil down to Bethesda's rushing of the game to meet the 11/11/11 date and/or incompetence with their failure to properly port and/or Q & A test the PS3 version, but the engine, in general, seems clearly better designed for the 360. This is a 360 game first and foremost, so we get to deal with generally less optimization for our platform and additional issues.

I would totally understand your point if this weren't a problem with the previous Bethesda games that were released. The concept of a growing save file is not new to testers.

Never said it was - the very fact that it isn't a new concept is probably exactly why it wasn't viewed to be a problem. Lots of games have save files that get progressively larger as you explore more of the game and give it more data to keep track of. Not every one of those games develops framerate issues in direct conjunction with the growing save data.

Well, they (GStaff) are giving a little insight as how is that the 360 version runs.

If you check that section about the texture problem when installing to the HDD, the game basically running / relying on their cache system reading from the DVD drive (which they DENIED at first, that IT DIDN'T matter if it was running from disk or HDD).

So PS3's Blu-Ray does differ from this by having a mandatory HDD install, I supposse because of the "allegedly" "superior" processing power of their hardware (which might been true SIX years ago).

It all comes down to Bethesda's arrogance at the corporate level :

Why spend money on good programers with better skills thus raising yor production costs when you can use that money to market your product to a wider demographic and therefore increase your revenue ?

Sure there will be a 10 to 25% disgruntled consumers that will see right through it, with half of those raging over, but guess what ? IT WORKS, seven millions shipped , 3.5 millions sold and more to come...

They already have it all worked out Oblivion, Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, all of these resulting in a financial succes; Brink/Rage (kill your competition by buying their souls) dead before they even got a chance to shine...

Sad but true....

It got through the cracks because their number one priority is marketing and profit. Obviously they could care less about us consumers, Which causes a ripple effect not just on the consumer level . But retailers who sold the game. A friend of mine who works at EB games is now dealing with having to explain to his manager why all these angry customers are coming in and demanding refunds on their ps3 copies. lol

Damn... Bethesda have really gone off the deep end, this time.

I hope it gets bigger so the Corporate Overlords take notice in their pockets. Otherwise they'll just MUD THROUGH IT.

Just like they've done it before.

You kind of answered your own question there; Bethesda does not give two ****s about you or this game. How do I know that? Because I played Fallout 3.