Xbox One owners who purchase the disc version of Halo: The Master Chief Collection will have to download a big 20GB 'Day One' patch when the game is released on November 11. Now Frank O'Connor, the Franchise Development Director for the Halo franchise at developer 343 Industries, has issued a public apology for having to issue such a big patch for the game.
In a post on the NeoGAF forums, O'Connor stated, "Do I understand the inconvenience and annoyance for some users? Of course. I'm not going to blow smoke or ignore it. For some folks it will be straight up annoying and I both apologize unreservedly for the irritance, and hope that the package and the way it works more than makes up for it."
The disc version of Halo: The Master Chief Collection will be maxed out at 45GB with the campaigns of Halo 1-4. The 20GB patch will include the multiplayer content of all those games plus more features. In addition, Microsoft plans to release a free update in December that will contain all of the Spartan Ops episodic content in Halo 4.
So why couldn't Microsoft release the game on two discs and thus save some download time? O'Conner stated, "Anything is feasible, it simply wasn't practical for this product, this year in this timeline. The Xbox One platform continues to improve and mature, arguably faster and more meaningfully than others and maybe next year two discs or some other method would have been the right approach, but this year it's the option we have available that on balance, makes the most sense for this giant, ambitious project."
Even with the large Day One download, O'Connor says, "Most players will have a smooth and happy experience. The game will launch (including digital version) before installation is complete, so there is plenty of content to play around in while the red installs. And we are continuing to look at ways to reduce that inconvenience."
Do you think Microsoft should have released the game on two discs?
