ARTICLE: "The delays: the uproar, reasons, and release dates."

The status of Morrowind for the Xbox has, and continues to be, a subject of enormous debate. On the one hand, people who already believed the game should have been a PC-exclusive title have been emboldened and perhaps encouraged by the lack of firm information from Microsoft and Bethesda Softworks with respect to a release date, or even the status of the game as it stands currently. On the other side of the coin, Xboxers angrily demand new information, cancel preorders, and flood message boards with enraged rhertoric and complaints. And on both sides, people begin to fear for the stability and playability of the Xbox version because of all the delays. Well, I am here to say, ENOUGH ALREADY.

This game WILL BE RELEASED. It WILL BE PLAYABLE. And it WILL BE STABLE. Period. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. End of discussion. PC users need to learn to respect Bethesda's choice to bring this game to the Xbox, and accept it. It will help fund future Bethsoft projects, and enable you to play more (and better) games in the long run. And my fellow Xbox users, while I wholeheartedly share your frustration, I do not, and cannot, share your anger. This is not Bethesda's "fault," nor is it Microsoft's "fault." No one is "to blame" for what is being seen as a bad situation. In reality, this is the best thing we could have hoped for. These delays show us something: a commitment. A commitment to the Xbox version of this game that goes beyond releasing it, making a few extra million dollars, and calling it a day. It demonstrates a firm commitment to the quality of this product, and they are doing it for our benefit: PC and Xbox gamers alike. This is a good thing, people.

Take a moment to find a calm place in your mind, step outside of the situation, and view it from a bird's eye point of view if you can. Dissregard your frustration and anger, and think with reason and common sense. This is Bethesda's FIRST console game. And unless it is also their last, these delays are critical. This game MUST be bug-free, and it must run well. The Xbox is capable of some amazing things-we all know that. It's memory bandwidth combined with the more efficient Windows kernel it uses means it will almost certainly have somewhat better frame rates than the PC version, and the devs have said as much. The technical issues facing this game are not stability-related. Oh, a few are, to be sure, because this occurs with EVERY game. However, my suspicion is that because of the uniform configuration of our console (as opposed to millions of PC configurations), MOST of the stability issues can be, and have been avoided. Eliminate these, and what remains? Plot holes, plot bugs, and plot breaks. Plot, plot, plot! Quest, quest, quest! This is what the patch for the PC version will address (in addition to allot of the technical issues of course) most likely, and it is what must be handled properly in the Xbox version if this game is to be playable to an accptable degree! Yes, there are graphical and technical issues...but it is the switching and plot conflicts and breaking potential which must be corrected to prevent us from "breaking" our games. While to some degree we are SUPPOSED to be able to "break" the quests, since we are not required to embark upon them, some major plot bugs can ruin the game, and these must be addressed. A patch or tweaking in the editor can handle this easily on the PC. Xbox is not so fortunate though.

So, then, you are probably saying to yourself (or cursing loudly toward your monitor), "Oh, great! This will take forever! This will take months! We won't see it until Fall!" I would not go that far. While it is POSSIBLE that the game will see another major delay, I seriously doubt it. Small ones, perhaps-even probably-but not a major delay. Why? Well, consider the number of posts with respect to broken plots and quests so far on the official forums. This game is on it's way to selling well over a million copies, and of all those people, only a handful (relatively speaking: several thousand out of one million is NOT a large number of people by any means, regardless of how it may seem on the forums), a FRACTION, have experienced crashes, bugs, and driver problems. And out of those, less then 100 have reported plot or quest bugs which severely effected their gameplay or ability to continue with the game. This does not indicate the need for a huge delay. If you ask me, the frequent, yet brief delays, indicate nothing more than some last minute fine tuning, things which they don't anticipate will take very long...otherwise, we would have seen a longer delay.

The last thing I want to mention is the release dates. There are two different dates. The ship date, and the in-store date. The ship date is the day the game shipment go out to various stores throughout a given region or country. Then there is the waiting period for shipping, which can be overnight for some stores, and several days to even an an entire week for others. This is why we are seeing so many different release dates. But there is only ONE shipping date, and whenever it changes, you will see it reflected on the countdown. (see top of page). Furtmermore, I wish people wouldn't assume that a "gone gold" press release or PR statement has to happen a week before the game ships. They most likely will not even make such a statement. If they do, I will be thankful, but very surprised. The first thing we're likely to hear is an "now shipping" announcement, and that's about it.

In conclusion, this game is worth waiting for. If you don't want to wait, try your hand at the PC version. Everyone knows if you have the system to play it, it's spectacular. But if you are going to wait, please, wait patiently, and remember how important delays really are. In the words of Rare, "A late game is only late until it ships. A bad game is bad forever."

-Ben (aka bensf81)

-Ben (aka bensf81) BACK