Sony Computer Entertainment America’s President and CEO Shawn Layden has defended the DRIVECLUB launch issues by giving a poor excuse on how it’s hard to test concurrent users hitting servers. According to Layden, it’s hard to beta test “50,000, 100,000, 200,000 users hit your service”. But we already know that the Destiny beta managed to test over 850,000 concurrent users.
Layden has the following to say to IGN:
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.
Destiny has over 850,000 players in the last beta test before launch, yet Sony seems to think that 50,000 is a challenge. It’s clear that an open beta for DRIVECLUB would have easily tested for this number of users, but for some odd reason, Evolution decided to hold a closed beta instead.
Layden also said Evolution are hard at work on fixing the game but “it is going slowly.” So far, they’ve spent the last month trying to fix the various server issues that could have been identified and resolved before release. Evolution has, however, said that the first DLC for the game will be free as compensation.