Jaffe: No patches on the heels of release, please

David Jaffe has said platform holders should limit the number of patches developers can release immediately after launch, to counter what he perceives as unacceptably buggy titles and barriers to game entry.

"Hardware manufacturers, I feel, should only allow one to four updates to the software per game per year," he said during a panel at GDC, as reported by Joystiq.

"None of them should come within the first one to two months the game is shipping."

"When I first started, when the disc was shipped it was our last chance [to get rid of bugs] off the bat," added.

"If developers could make it work then, then today they can at least make sure our games don't have to be updated the first week they hit shelves."

Although the God of War creator's comments poked at buggy releases, the topic of his micro-talk was reducing the time between putting in the disc and playing the game - a period which can be seriously blown out by patch download and install time.

However, Jaffe also suggested a firmware feature which starts games by loading a recent save file, bypassing logos and menus.

Jaffe's comments about limiting patches are in opposition with those of developers like Valve, who have been vocal in their detraction of Microsoft's laborious title update review process.