Thursday, March 28

‘Gran Turismo 7’ has been unplayable for almost a day, casting doubt on ‘always on’ games


Only a couple of weeks ago that ‘Gran Turismo 7’ arrived exclusively on Playstation consoles, and it has already suffered its first puncture: its servers have been under maintenance for hours, which has made it impossible to access almost all of its features (of course the multiplayer, but also the Career Mode) for almost a day. According the website of ‘Gran Turismo 7‘, “Due to an issue found in Update 1.07, we are extending the current server maintenance period.”

A controversial patch. This patch fixed a long series of bugs and also removed all licensed music so streamers don’t have rights issues. It is a patch that has also come with controversy: apparently, the rewards for winning races are now lower in many cases. That is, fewer credits, which makes it considerably more difficult to acquire more expensive vehicles.

Players haven’t reacted too well to a change that involves spending more money on microtransactions to earn those credits. At the moment, the patch has just arrived, but what has drawn attention to its implementation have been the technical problems and the servers being down for maintenance for an unusual number of hours.

Always connected, an idea with years behind it. For a long time, games and consoles have been fooling around with the idea of ​​an ecosystem in which the player always remains connected. The most unfortunate point of that proposal, without a doubt, occurred with Microsoft’s failed intention that Xbox be, more than a console, a multimedia entertainment center, always connected and with access to streaming, internet, and everything controllable with devices like Kinect. The failure of the idea was obvious: the successors of Xbox One, Xbox Series X and S do not even support the use of Kinect.

Also Read  Oscars 2022: what time are they, where to see them and how to follow the awards of the Academy of American cinema

Combined options. Currently, many games support a hybrid mode in their relationship with the Internet: it is convenient to always be connected, but if they are not, nothing happens. The case of ‘Elden Ring’ and ‘Souls’ is the clearest: the continuous connection favors the gaming experience, but there are those who prefer not to have it, and the game can be approached completely offline. Perhaps the nature of a game like ‘Gran Turismo 7’ called for such an approach.

'Gran Turismo 7' is more than a great driving game: it is a love letter to motorsports and its culture

Online by nature. Because on the other hand, we have dozens of games that require online play, given their mechanics. Of games like ‘Fortnite’ and others shooters online to MMORPGs, whose raison d’être is connected gaming, passing through games as a service or, directly, cloud gaming platforms such as Stadia or GeForce Now. It is obvious that the internet is an intrinsic part of the industry, but as long as the connections and servers do not function more competently, perhaps the game should be left exclusively online only to the companies focused exclusively on it.



Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *