Assetto Corsa Xbox Update Delayed Further - Release Date Unknown

[Paul Jeffrey]

The debacle that is the scheduled Xbox One update for Assetto Corsa has taken yet another nose dive, with Kunos Simulazioni admitting the planned release date of this week has slipped... again.

Unfortunately the process of requesting and subsequently receiving update approvals for games hosted on the Microsoft family of consoles is a difficult and challenging path in which to negotiate, a difficulty Kunos and their console development partners 505 Games have fallen foul of previously when attempting to deploy updates for the title in the recent past.

Expecting to bring the Xbox version in line with its PC and PlayStation 4 counterparts earlier in the year, the initial update launch was held back by Microsoft in order to allow the developers more time to work on some issues highlighted by the console giants. Following a period of silence on the subject from Kunos and 505 Games the developers took to their official social media channels earlier this month to confirm an expected release of the 1.14 update was scheduled for the end of the previous week. Of course this deadline has now passed and it appears that an end to the update saga is still not yet within sight.

With yet another deadline overdue, Kunos have recently confirmed that an exact release date for the next patch is still up in the air for Xbox players, with the following statement regarding the state of the title below:

"Hi everyone. We just wanted to give you all an update on the situation regarding Update v 1.14 on Xbox One... As you know, we have encountered some issues in our submissions process and we're not in the clear yet! We understand that this is incredibly frustrating for our players and we can only apologise at this stage for the delay.

We will of course, keep you up to date with the latest and as soon as we're ready to launch, we will let you all know!"

It is in no doubt that this latest blow must come as disappointing news for Xbox One Assetto Corsa players, however stay tuned to RaceDepartment as we bring you the latest updates on the situation as and when they become available.

Assetto Corsa is available to purchase on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 right now.

The Assetto Corsa sub forum here at RaceDepartment is a great place to get together with your fellow sim racing fans and discuss the simulation on all three launch platforms for the title. As well as providing a space on the internet for you to chat, read the latest news and throw out any questions to your fellow sim racing fans, we also host a range of pretty awesome club racing events in a wide variety of cars, plus we have a substantial archive of regularly updated mods for you to browse and download at your leisure. Head over, say hello and get involved today!

Xbox One player? What do you think of the current situation regarding the title on the console? Are you looking forward to the update, do you think these sorts of issues shouldn't be happening now? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[Timmy UK]

Oh dear....

 

[Tobiman]

Uh oh...xbox guys ain't gonna be happy. lol

 

[tlsmikey]

Uh oh...xbox guys ain't gonna be happy. lol

Except they're all too busy playing forza.

 

[Chazz Ranger]

Let's not forget who's really to blame for this:

The console players, for buying consoles instead of PCs.

 

[Austin Ogonoski]

Microsoft just has higher standards than Sony for updates. If the update is delayed, it means it hasn't "passed tech inspection", to use a racing term.

Which is strange considering Kunos does seminars on how to successfully port a game and maintain it on consoles.

 

[darkelf1]

Console version needs more tracks...

 

[SunBro]

Microsoft wants Forza to have absolutely zero competition, therefore c*ckblocks AC. (oh and pleeeaaase don't tell me i'm a conspiracy theorist; thank you very much)

 

[Kenny Paton]

Microsoft wants Forza to have absolutely zero competition, therefore c*ckblocks AC. (oh and pleeeaaase don't tell me i'm a conspiracy theorist; thank you very much)

If pCars2 has similar problems then that'll prove your point.

 

[Epistolarius]

Disappointing, certainly. Xbox customers definitely have the right to be angry about the development since and due to the botched launch, even if this patch-delay isn't directly Kunos' fault. Even as PC player this isn't what I like to see, I'd much rather like to see the console version doing well.

Once 1.14 releases for Xbox One maybe Kunos could shine some light on what happened if they can. Maybe explain the difficulties of the process. They've been pretty much in this release mess with patches, servers, DLC ever since the console release, this isn't the first delay after all. Sure it's a challenge for a small team like theirs... but I can't quite believe this is simply inexperience or incompetence on their side, with how well things work on PC, PS4 (mostly) and considering that the ports appear to have been in development for a good while.

 

[Grand Tourist]

Microsoft is a rotten company. They want control over EVERYTHING. They will never let Kunos to be a real threat to Forza. End of discussion, for me at least.
Glad I own the pc game, glad I played PS1-PS3 games back in the day. I feel sorry for the XBOX owners.

 

[lolol934]

lol? Kunos will never be a threat to Forza ... and that's not because of Microsoft.
The reason is Assetto is trying to be the best simulation, but lacks of several elementary simulation aspects.
Forza isn't even trying to be a simulation, it's about fun and collecting cars. Forza 7 is shipping with more than 700 cars and a lots of tracks.
Good driving physics are the base of every simulation but that's just not all.

Assetto: flying starts, night racing (yes it's possible in a simple way), good real AI + multiclass (yeah they improved), tracks like le mans (too expensive, why not let the player pay as they usual do), car DLCs like a GT3 pack (so that all cars are from the same year and maybe BoPed) and many other aspects

graphic wise: ballons are flying at any weather, tires are illuminated through the cars

 

[Lorenzo Bonder]

I found the reason:

AC can't run on 4k on their new Xbox One X. So Microsoft will hold on them until that happens. #factsthrownrightthere

P.S: I do own a Xbox One

P.S.2: I'm just joking ladies, for those who take this a bit seriously, which you shouldn't.

 

[Grand Tourist]

lol? Kunos will never be a threat to Forza ... and that's not because of Microsoft.
The reason is Assetto is trying to be the best simulation, but lacks of several elementary simulation aspects.
Forza isn't even trying to be a simulation, it's about fun and collecting cars. Forza 7 is shipping with more than 700 cars and a lots of tracks.
Good driving physics are the base of every simulation but that's just not all.

Assetto: flying starts, night racing (yes it's possible in a simple way), good real AI + multiclass (yeah they improved), tracks like le mans (too expensive, why not let the player pay as they usual do), car DLCs like a GT3 pack (so that all cars are from the same year and maybe BoPed) and many other aspects

graphic wise: ballons are flying at any weather, tires are illuminated through the cars

Maybe the whole feel of the game AC is not what Microsoft are after for their audience, but shouldnt they have blocked Kunos from XBox from the very start in stead of agreeing a deal and then hold them off for this long? That is not really fair too toward Kunos. How can they develop if they are not allowed to update? Agreed AC is not a "whole experience" game, but that never has been its intention.

 

[kondor999]

I think it's important to remember that none of us know what the hell we're talking about when it comes to the console development process. What I have read says that it's a fairly bizarre, tortuous system that can seem arbitrary.

An example: I know that updates (and initial roll-outs) can get hung up because the game doesn't work with, for instance, a single obscure licensed peripheral. Or doesn't lock out unlicensed hardware.

That sort of thing happened with FM4 in 2012. They pushed out an update that broke compatibility with CSR Elite wheels because they were trying to lock out unlicensed 3rd party wheels and ended up over-doing it. It was an intermittent disconnect error that didn't get noticed during QA.

I guess my point is that there's a lot of moving pieces involved that the devs can't talk about.

 

[Stereo]

It feels a bit silly to call it "admitting" when they're just relaying information that comes from Microsoft, and anyway you can tell the update hasn't happened cause it hasn't. Obviously at Kunos/505's end the work is done cause it came out on PS4, it's just some compatibilty problem for xbox that apparently has an 'enterprise' speed of patching.

 

[MarkR]

Bingo! The full house of Kunos apologist excuses on page 1 of the thread:

- They are a small team. (Solution, stay on PC only, oh wait though look at all those console sales, they could be so successful they could even sell the company...) How on earth does every other developer cope?

- It's all nasty Microsoft's fault. (Solution, hmm well every other developer seems to manage, maybe a look closer to home is required.)

- The Turn 10 conspiracy. (Fact check: Forza 6 has 5.3 million regular players 2 years after launch, AC 500k 'unit sales' of which many remain with resellers and even more in the trade-in aisle. Less than 50 players a night in the fixed static AC online lobbies on Xbox One, when they are even working. Mock Forza all you wish it works and can provide some surprisingly good online racing.) Turn 10 are so scared of AC they are even releasing Forza 7 on PC.

For the avoidance of doubt as I've been quoted on it, I was generous, UK peak 9pm time, worldwide servers (check the ping), 38 players @Austin Ogonoski

- All console players should have bought PCs. (Fact check install base of PS4 69m, Xbox One 31m, gaming PC capable of playing games like AC maybe 20m but in reality who knows. The console version of AC outsold the PC version almost 2:1 that gives us an idea of where the majority of players are and like it or not the commercial success. Look at similar titles like the codies F1 games and you see a similar pattern.)

Even The Lord himself (since American Gods release on Amazon I have a sneaking suspicion that he is one of the Old Gods, maybe even one of the Jesus's, desperately seeking public adoration once more after his first dev game Ludus Iatrunculorum fell from public awareness) admitted there is nothing wrong with the Xbox hardware and the issues lies with the skills of the people coding. It has been widely stated that it is the direct application of The Lord's, and a select few others, skills that make AC on PC what it is today. He freely admits he has little to do with the console version and that has shown from the start.

AC on Xbox has been a huge disappointment from launch and the pace of updates glacial and now slowed to a stop. We have the ridiculous situation where Assetto Corsa is actually 3 different games, superb on PC after the latest AI update, average on PS4 but at least all the content can be used online even if the system is clunky and has a few bugs like tyre wear not working (this is Your Racing Simulator remember!), the Xbox One version is one of the poorest games on Xbox in terms of both functionalities (no leaderboards, no customisable multiplayer, static Kunos multiplayer servers, no single player events to use much of the paid DLC content in), performance and ability of the user to use the content in the game.

Kunos have been on such a roll lately with the new AI, good PS4 update that this just makes the Xbox One failure more disappointing. In reality, I've had my monies worth of gameplay from the PC version several times over so that offsets this to some extent. You know though we finally thought we just might get to play some decent AC racing on Xbox One over the summer before the big new releases, seems not to be the case.

At lease DiRT 4 is good in the meantime - ooh I best run away quickly before the handling guru's descend!

 

[larre90]

One of the mainproblems with this is, that this more work to do on the console-versions may delay the work on the PC- and PS4-versions as well. Due to the intend not let the gap between the different versions become too big.

Evidence is the sudden "update-rate-drop" since the release of the console-versions. I sure can understand that, but it's also frustrating. The guys now checking the "problems" with the XBO-version could otherwise possibly now working on few minor bugs considering the new double-race-layouts. (Please prove me wrong here, if I'm wrong. I have absolutely no idea how this works, just a little thinking of me... )

 

[Deleted member 130869]

I saw something and I agree. All console users should be gifted DLC, the XBox One users do deserve all existing DLC - past and future - for free.

 

[Tim Lundy]

I think it's important to remember that none of us know what the hell we're talking about when it comes to the console development process. What I have read says that it's a fairly bizarre, tortuous system that can seem arbitrary.

An example: I know that updates (and initial roll-outs) can get hung up because the game doesn't work with, for instance, a single obscure licensed peripheral. Or doesn't lock out unlicensed hardware.

That sort of thing happened with FM4 in 2012. They pushed out an update that broke compatibility with CSR Elite wheels because they were trying to lock out unlicensed 3rd party wheels and ended up over-doing it. It was an intermittent disconnect error that didn't get noticed during QA.

I guess my point is that there's a lot of moving pieces involved that the devs can't talk about.

Finally some common sense in a forest of armchair console developers.