The worst thing is that this goes for EVERYTHING now, not just games. While Tesla got lots of praise for OTA updates, it was one of the worst things that happened to the automotive industry, because manufacturers no longer have to worry about expensive recalls for sometimes serious issues. They will ship things that are known defects, sometimes serious ones, and you can hand wave the consequences away with “Oh, it’ll be OTA’d by delivery.”
That being said, sometimes it’s a benefit, because there might be a major and a minor annoying defect, and we can now better prioritize getting the major one fixed before shipping and the minor one OTA’d, but it has still set a frustrating and dangerous precedent in the industry.
Fun fact: the Model 3 was shipped without any low-mu (ice/snow) calibration for its stability control system, and it was later OTA updated. Why was this allowed? They needed to get cars off the line ASAP, and they said “Well, all the initial customers are in California and it’s summer, so they won’t be driving in slick conditions.” Literally delivering to customers with known safety defects, but because it could be updated OTA, they didn’t care.
The worst thing is that this goes for EVERYTHING now, not just games. While Tesla got lots of praise for OTA updates, it was one of the worst things that happened to the automotive industry, because manufacturers no longer have to worry about expensive recalls for sometimes serious issues. They will ship things that are known defects, sometimes serious ones, and you can hand wave the consequences away with “Oh, it’ll be OTA’d by delivery.”
That being said, sometimes it’s a benefit, because there might be a major and a minor annoying defect, and we can now better prioritize getting the major one fixed before shipping and the minor one OTA’d, but it has still set a frustrating and dangerous precedent in the industry.
Fun fact: the Model 3 was shipped without any low-mu (ice/snow) calibration for its stability control system, and it was later OTA updated. Why was this allowed? They needed to get cars off the line ASAP, and they said “Well, all the initial customers are in California and it’s summer, so they won’t be driving in slick conditions.” Literally delivering to customers with known safety defects, but because it could be updated OTA, they didn’t care.