Bethesda: "decline" New Vegas 360 update

By Fred Dutton Published 29 April, 2011

Patched patch coming soon.

Bethesda has urged users to decline the latest Xbox 360 update for Fallout: New Vegas following reports yesterday that it was causing system crashes and rendering game saves unplayable.

A statement on the Bethesda blog explained that developers had figured out what the problem was and would be issuing a new patch soon.

"Regarding the Xbox 360 update, we've discovered a solution to the issue that's causing problems with game saves," it read. "We'll be hosting a replacement update on Xbox Live as soon as humanly possible.

"If you haven't grabbed the New Vegas update on 360 today, we recommend you decline the update until the new one is live. We'll be sure to let you know when it's up."

The update is thought to pave the way for a new DLC expansion called Honest Hearts.

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About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (36) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • dsmx #1 1 year ago

    Isn't there supposed to be an approval process to stop this from happening, then again there's supposed to be an approval process to stop buggy messes of games from being released in the first place.

  • giant_frying_pan #2 1 year ago

    At least they've committed to fixing this bug. Fallout 3 has save game bugs that remain fully unfixed to this day, which lost me 50+ hours of play time.

  • M4RV #3 1 year ago

    At least they've committed to fixing this bug. Fallout 3 has save game bugs that remain fully unfixed to this day, which lost me 50+ hours of play time.

    ^ ^ ^ ^

    It sold well regardless and both publishers and developers got the message: Buggy games sell.

  • yoomazir #4 1 year ago

    what about those who already downloaded it?

  • coolbritannia #5 1 year ago

    Fucking ridiculous. Shoddy stuff, and yes, the approval process is meant to catch these fuck ups before they happen.

    Bethesda pulled a proper Sony here.

  • GoingPostal13 #6 1 year ago

    Bit late for that, it's already applied. Gave a odd message about a save missing a DLC, but I played it for a couple of hours without issue.

  • brod #7 1 year ago

    I'd like to thank the 5 million+ early adopters for beta testing this game for me. I look forward to picking up the fully patched complete edition with all DLC included next year.

  • el_pollo_diablo #8 1 year ago

    £5 to the first person who manages to blame Sony for this.

  • midnight_walker #9 1 year ago

    Why not just pull the update from XBox Live instead of forcing users offline after declining the patch? I blame Sony for this, they must have paid Bethesda off keep 360 users on equal footing.

    £5 please.

  • Freek #10 1 year ago

    Or you could remove the update untill you have something that is correct, just a thought.

  • el_pollo_diablo #11 1 year ago

    / pays

  • NewbieZilla #12 1 year ago

    I didn't really care too much about the delay for the patch. They had a lot to fix, and patches go through numerous steps in the process to its release. That the patch took so long to be released isn't so much an issue as they still couldn't fix the damn thing. I bet this has put back their DLC scheduling a lot, too.

  • peppergomez #13 1 year ago

    How about we just "decline" FO:NV entirely?

  • Murton #14 1 year ago

    Moral of the story: don't continue to use the widely discredited and much hated GameBryo engine, this kind of shit is constantly happening, look at the mess that was Fallout 3.

    Quite how 4J Studios managed to make the PS3 version of Oblivion work without constantly crashing and corrupted save data is beyond me, they must have had Jesus himself in there optimisation writing code.

  • CordableTuna #15 1 year ago

    Bethesda's quality is remarkably consistent.

  • superdelphinus #16 1 year ago

    Haven't they done this before?

  • Sevens #17 1 year ago

    Hilarious and not acceptable.

  • Eraysor #18 1 year ago

    I accepted it! Shit! Though the game is still working fine for me.

  • Inmediasress #19 1 year ago

    Kind of funny Bethesda are famous for their buggy games but somehow this is a new kind of low even for themXDDD
    Patch that needs a patch just hilarious.
    Seriously tough I feel bad for skyrim.
    Devs/Publishers get away with anything nowadays and mostly its the consumers fault for buying into every shit piece of unfinished garbage that they put in front of him.
    People should learn that preordering is unacceptable.
    Wait til its out see a few reviews and demos if there are any and maybe then you have a better chance to decide if the unfinished buggy mess is worth it or not.
    Then again people that buy apperance packs for mass effect and get excited about item packs for games are probably beyond help anyway.
    Edited by Inmediasress at 29/04/11 @ 22:20

  • azic #20 1 year ago

    Well I lost my entire game save, game just goes back to loading screen and then black screen or loops on loading. 100s of hours lost, traded it in today, can't be Bothered with it anymore. Shame but I can not play it again, whilst some great moments I cant be fucked doing it all again.

  • rudedudejude #21 1 year ago

    Nice of them to apologise to their customers.

  • ubergine #22 1 year ago

    I heard about this patch weeks ago and bought Fallout New Vegas again so my flatmate could play it after the patch. Muggins here started it again, bought Dead Money, got told by Dead Money that I should be level 20, so played the on-disc game for 32 hours (according to the game save) and was at level 17 I think when I had my game busted by this patch. I started the game again, but shit, should I just be asking for my money back for Dead Money, New Vegas and perhaps a reimbursement of my time at say $20/hour for 32 hours?

  • slickster #23 1 year ago

    I just hope SKYRIM is not buggy like this terd.

  • Murton #24 1 year ago

    @slickster

    Judging by what we've seen of Skyrim I'm expecting bugs. Bethesda are saying its a new engine and even named it as such but looking at it I suspect it's a further modified GameBryo engine at the core. Also bear in mind that it's a Bethesda development so several script bugs will also be appearing, I'm expecting some minor annoyances such as the "Guitar Hero" bug on PS3 and also something major along the lines of Oblivions infamous "Vampire glitch"

    If they've completely rewritten the way that GameBryo handles system memory then at least we won't be contending with constant crashing and corrupted saves due to memory leakage, but given that Gamebryo has been known for that issue since before Morrowind and Bethesda still built 4 games plus expansions based on that tech (if you include New Vegas) I'd be inclined to believe that either A: they can't fix the memory leak problem or B: aren't bothered by the memory leak problem.

    At the end of the day I suppose the blame has to lie with Sony and MS, they have the power to block a game's release on their platform on grounds of quality but refuse to make use of this power resulting in the likes of Bethesda releasing beta or even alpha level code for sale to the public. I've got a pre-order on Skyrym, but whether or not I actually pick it up will depend on whether or Bethesda have the spine to allow a pre-release review and whether or not some reviewer out there has the balls to talk about build quality.

  • evarofzentral #25 1 year ago

    Well at least there was one advantage to PSN going down! I still really enjoyed FNV despite the bugs though, people have to remember its a very big game running on what is now pretty old technology.

  • Lord_Gremlin #26 1 year ago

    Bravo. Never bought this game, feel sorry for those who did. It boggles my mind - Microsoft and Sony actually certified and allowed for it to be released on their consoles.

  • digitalash #27 1 year ago

    I must have lost hours of reloading to the bugs in New Vegas. And I only got it two weeks ago! I thought they'd have patched it to stability by now. I like it how on every quest entry in the New Vegas Wiki there is a whole section devoted to bugs; not one or two, either, reams of the bloody things for every single mission, e.g - [link url=http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/You%27ll_Know_It_When_It_Happens
    ]http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/You%27ll_K...[/link]

    It's a good game, but the bugs are more than annoying; they fundamentally threaten the contract between player and designer. You often don't know whether you're not doing the quest right or if that NPC just happens not to have spawned, that key item is supposed to look like that or whether that friendly is designed to just start randomly shooting you. (Normally they aren't).
    Edited by digitalash at 30/04/11 @ 15:20

  • bdc #28 1 year ago

    wat is qa

  • ubergine #29 1 year ago

    When I logged in earlier on 360 it asked me to download an update again, I did and now my broken save games work. Not sure whether it is a new new patch or if it simply removed the new broken patch.

  • ubergine #30 1 year ago

    I've just got to add that this whole thing suggests that Microsoft's patch scrutiny bureaucracy, which always gets blamed by developers for patches taking ages, can't be worth shit.

  • DrMGinius #31 1 year ago

    @Murton Well, if an engine they have been using for 5 years (or more) is still buggy as hell (buggy as day one, I'd say), we can most definitively expect a new engine to be extra-glitchy.

    As for the patch, nothing new, really. Keep buying Bethesda's games by dozens and giving them) 9/10's; see if future developers bother to hire testers (not to speak about Bethesda itself).

    Don't get me wrong, I'm no Bethesda hater (their glitches are not game-breaking, for the most part anyway, and can actually even add fun factor to their games), it just ticks me off.
    Edited by DrMGinius at 30/04/11 @ 23:47

  • Retroid #32 1 year ago

    Christ.

    Bethesda don't have a good track record for this sort of thing, do they? The Fallout DLCs which were released in broken states, the bugged achievements / trophies...

    I love their stuff, but FFS; PLEASE take more care in future. ESPECIALLY when Mass Effect 3 is released at the end of this year!

  • Syrette #33 1 year ago

    I think some of you guys believe the certification process is more thorough than perhaps it actually is.

    Again, you can probably assume that some issues simply weren't seen by certification.

  • Phantom_Dynamite #34 1 year ago

    Don't download the patch there is Fatboy in it that will blow up your game saves and possibly your house.
    Edited by Phantom_Dynamite at 01/05/11 @ 15:32

  • gandhimaster #35 1 year ago

    this kind of bullshit is ridiculous.

    developers that do this should be heavily fined by MS as its unacceptable.
    Edited by gandhimaster at 02/05/11 @ 11:29

  • BuckEntropy #36 1 year ago

    And after all these years, I don't care what reasons or excuses were given, I STILL blame Morrowind for killing my first XBOX's DVD drive...

    Though I'm thinking of reopening the investigation, as I now understand it could have been something Sony did.

    _>