Capcom VS SNK EO patch, a good/bad thing?

[vertigo]

From the Magic Box a few days ago:

- Capcom announced they will release an update patch for Capcom Vs SNK EO for Xbox, which fixes a number of flaws in the game, when playing over the Xbox Live server, problems such as choppy sounds and missing music after the system is connected to the server.

Do you see this as a good thing or a bad thing?
In some ways it's good, it fixes the problems with a major part of the XBox version, the Live part, and gives the consumer the full product as it should have been, Capcom have done something about it, and that's fine... but I see it as a very bad thing in the bigger picture/longer term.
In the beginning during the development phase, surely Capcom should have tested the game properly to make sure it would run correctly over an online server. Of course, you can't test every single variable with something as wide as online gaming, but there are a considerably large number of people complaining about problems necessitating this patch, so surely this shouldn't have even needed fixing in the first place.
But what effect will it have on the wider development community as far as XBox is currently, and future consoles and online strategies? I think it could be a very bad thing as far as rushing product out of the door for release before it's been properly bug-tested. The PC gaming industry is full of things like this, where it's often quite rare to see a game actually released bug-free. Of course, apart from lazy coding, bugs can be a lot to do with differing hardware and this is something that's often out of the control of developers as, like I said, you can't test every variable with something like that.
However, with a medium like consoles I think it will just promote laziness within the development community as, instead of missing your pay that month and having to bug-fix, devcos could just release 'on time', take the money, then worry about the patch later. Well within the console industry this just plain isn't on. With the more powerful hardware of recent years there has been a very small increase in the release of bugged software, but it's very negligible, and things like this escape through the net.
But with what could possibly become an increasingly patch-oriented industry, I think it's possible that segregation will occur, and it'll become like the PC gaming industry where it's no longer the plug-and-play friendliness of consoles, but more having to buy the game, go home, get online, and then download a big patch in order to play. I see it as becoming not only something that fixes the online side like this patch release does, but something that could affect the single-player offline aspects of console games as well. This means that consumers could end up buying software that's bugged, and then not being able to get the fixed version because they're not online, or having to go through the whole rubbish of downloading patches for their software.
That is no fun, as any but the more dedicated PC gamer will confirm.
I don't want to see it happen to the console industry and it should be stopped now before it grows into the ugly patch-heavy monster that the PC gaming industry has become. And what of the consoles that don't currently have a wide and relatively well-known online strategy like GameCube and PS2? With games being converted often across the board on two or three consoles, the bugs will surely exist in all versions. What happens then when you have one version (XBox) with a relatively easily accessible patch available, compared to one or two other versions that will remain bugged?
Any opinions?

[TommyG]

Yeah, but the Patches are for the online aspect of things, not for the offline game which will work fine with no bugs. So gamers who don't go online aren't going to be affected unless it's an extra lvl they are missing out on like in Splinter Cell.

I just wish they could have done something about pullers, which is my biggest gripe.

[Greng]

The code for the game has been there for since mid 2001 [arcade release] so it's no surprise the single player mode works OK. As for the patches, it's worrying to see such limited playtesting from Capcom. While It's a little annoying having to wait for games which have been delayed too much, it's even worse when a game is rushed out to the shops and doesn't even work properly. This has become acceptable for PC gamers and to be fair, a lot of patches aren't just there to fix bugs, they add extra elements to the games and refine balance [weapon / health adjustments etc.]. Hopefully this doesn't become a trend as it leads to lazy production values. Fortunately it should be a painless experience getting the patches. I'm assuming it pretty much does this automatically for you?

[vertigo]

Yeah, but the Patches are for the online aspect of things, not for the offline game which will work fine with no bugs. So gamers who don't go online aren't going to be affected unless it's an extra lvl they are missing out on like in Splinter Cell.
I just wish they could have done something about pullers, which is my biggest gripe.

Absolutely, while I think it's admirable that Capcom have admitted that there's a major problem in this case and have released a patch, what I'm addressing is the situation further down the line, where devcos look at their product and think "Well why bother bug-testing this too much, when we can rely on consumers to complain and we can just bung out an auto-patch that works when the customer goes online? We can rush out our products and then iron out the problems later". This is the thing I have problems with, what a predominantly online console market could lead to, just as it has done within the PC games development industry. The biggest problem being when a game isn't designed for online play, or is developed across platforms, some of which aren't online-ready and the bugs are present in all versions. This then causes a problem because people who aren't and don't want to be registered online can then not enjoy the game to it's full capacity as they wouldn't receive the patch and would then have to put up with problems within the game that shouldn't be there to begin with because the bugs should have already been ironed out in the development testing phase.
The thing about pullers, yes, that sucks, I believe it was your story I read earlier about some highly rated guy that pulled before you were going to kill him. Maybe they could build something in that affects your ratings when you pull. Broadband connections don't drop that often.

[Max M]

Yeah, but the Patches are for the online aspect of things, not for the offline game which will work fine with no bugs. .

But apparently the Unreal Championship patch smooths out the poor framerate offline.