DriveClub’s troubled launch ’embarrassed’ Sony & Evolution

DriveClub’s troubled launch “embarrassed” both Sony and developer Evolution Studios, PlayStation UK boss Fergal Gara has admitted while pledging that the firm is “doing [its] damnedest to make things right”.

“It’s a disappointment,” he said, speaking to IGN about the game’s launch troubles. “When you lay your soul out as being ‘4ThePlayers’, then what you certainly don’t want is games that are not fully ready. It certainly wasn’t any ill-intention on behalf of the team. It’s ambitious as a game; they’re as embarrassed as we are and all you can do in those situations is say sorry.

“We apologise to any players affected and are doing our damnedest to make things right. So that’s what we’ve been doing and the game is pretty near-complete now. We don’t want to introduce the PS Plus Edition until we’re confident the servers can take the load.”

Gara says that Sony wants to be confident that the game’s netcode will handle the “millions of PS Plus users” before releasing the PS Plus Edition, which had been due to launch alongside the full game in early October.

“Unleashing it on the millions of PS Plus users is the next step, but we want confidence in the capacity and concurrency figures,” he continued. “I’ll say again: we apologise and are trying to sort it, and we’ll hopefully learn from it so we see it less in future.”

DriveClub’s Challenge system was reactivated last Thursday, with the new dynamic weather options introduced earlier this week.