‘Skyrim: Dawnguard’ DLC Releases
Bethesda

Bethesda Softworks has already launched two DLCs for “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim,” but neither of these have made their way to the PlayStation 3. Players on Sony’s gaming platform have been eagerly waiting for the vampire-themed Dawnguard quest to come to their consoles, but technical difficulties have been standing in the way.

However, these issues may not be exclusive to the Dawnguard DLC. Recent words from Bethesda’s Pete Hines have insinuated that these problems affect all Skyrim DLC releases for the PlayStation 3.

“This is not a Dawnguard issue,” the Bethesda VP of Public Relations and Marketing posted to Twitter on Tuesday. “This is a DLC on PS3 issue. It affected DG because it was the first one.”

Fan interest in Dawnguard’s development reached another peak on Wednesday morning as numerous players sent questions to Hines via Twitter.

“So now it’s no hope for dawngurd [SIC] for ps3?? Thanks so much! L” one fan tweeted.

“Still working on it. We haven’t given up yet,” Hines replied.

The “Dawnguard” DLC was released for Xbox 360 consoles on June 26, and made its way to PCs later in the summer. PS3 gamers are still waiting for the release, and today’s statements from Hines marks one of many DLC-related tweets since the launch of Dawnguard.

Bethesda’s exclusivity deal with Xbox manufacturer Microsoft was believed to be the primary cause for the delayed DLC launch on PS3. Hines, acting as a arbiter between the company and its fan base, has responded to player inquiries about how this Microsoft contract affects Bethesda’s other platforms.

“In hindsight- was it a good idea to release Dawnguard on exclusivity to Microsoft—seeing the damage done to the PS3 community?” a fan tweeted to Hines.

“In hindsight, it didn’t matter,” he replied.

“Are you at all worried this may alienate your ps3 fanbase” another player asked via Twitter.

“I worry about anything that negatively affects any fan of any game on any platform. So, yes,” he posted in response.

However, when the severity of Bethesda’s technical difficulties became evident in September, it was clear that Microsoft exclusivity wasn’t the only factor when it comes to Dawnguard’s release.

“It’s been a few weeks, and we wanted to make sure everyone knows where we’re at with ‘Dawnguard,’” a post in the official Bethesda forums read. “Skyrim is a massive and dynamic game that requires a lot of resources, and things get much more complex when you’re talking about sizable content like ‘Dawnguard.’ We have tried a number of things, but none of them solve the issue enough to make ‘Dawnguard’ good for everyone.”

The post went on to say that the Bethesda team is continually working on bringing Skyrim DLC to PS3 players, but the problem’s fix has yet to be discovered.

“The PS3 is a powerful system, and we’re working hard to deliver the content you guys want. Dawnguard is obviously not the only DLC we’ve been working on either, so the issues of adding content get even more complicated. This is not a problem we’re positive we can solve, but we are working together with Sony to try to bring you this content.”

Bethesda has not detailed their difficulties with developing for the PlayStation 3, but another video game developer has shared some insight as to how different the Xbox 360 and PS3 platforms are. In an interview with Gaming Bolt in July, Munkyfun Studio's Cory Bloyd said one of the key distinguishing features between the two consoles is the GPU.

“Eventually some Sony 1st-party devs [developers] got fed up and made their own PIX-like GPU debugger,” Bloyd said when referring to the PS3. “The GPU is very, very disappointing…Most people try to stick to working with the CPU, but it can’t handle the workload.”

The Xbox 360, in contrast, has a “great” GPU and a debugger that works extremely well, according to Bloyd.

As for Dawnguard’s arrival on the PS3, Hines said that the development team is doing all they can.

“Until we exhaust all the options,” Hines tweeted Wednesday, “there’s no date in mind for that.”

Sony Twitter