The president of Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) has admitted that DRIVECLUB developer, Evolution Studios, was unable to efficiently test the online component of its PlayStation 4 racer prior to its release.
Speaking during an interview with IGN, Shawn Layden said that the game’s connected nature posed problems for when it came to ironing out any wrinkles pre-release. Nonetheless, he praised the studio for its ambitions with the socially-driven title.
"[Evolution has] done innovations in the racing genre that even my good friend Kazunori [Yamauchi, Founder and President of Sony-owned Polyphony Digital] hasn’t replicated yet in [Gran Turismo], about deformation of the environment, of the cars, of that type of thing," said Layden. "Their ambition with Driveclub was to create this uber-connected experience, melded with the driving experience…"
"In the development cycle, we try to do all things. In the development cycle, we try to test against every possibility. We have a [Quality Assurance] team, we have a QA plan. You do a beta test, you scope against that. But now, in a connected world, you can’t effectively test in your house or in your beta group what it means to have 50,000, 100,000, 200,000 users hit your service. And the guys [at the studio] are struggling with that. It’s throwing up things they had not anticipated.
"And I get reports from them every day on the progress that they’re making, and it is going forward. It is going slowly, but, you know, they tried to do the best, newest, greatest thing ever to happen in the driving genre and they hit a hiccup. I prefer people to have the ambition to try that, though. It’s no fun being safe all the time."
DRIVECLUB launched in early October with more than a few issues, sadly resulting in the delay of the PlayStation Plus Edition of the PS4-exclusive racer. Evolution is still working on fixes to this day, and it remains unknown when the PS Plus version will see the light of day.
Evolution will release a new update for the game later today, which includes the Photo Mode.
Read our review of DRIVECLUB here.