Skyrim's Problems on PS3: The Players Speak Out

Last week, we asked you to vote in our unscientific polls, asking PS3 gamers what issues they were having with Skyrim, if any. This came on the heels of reported problems for Skyrim on PS3, problems that should be fixed with a patch that's coming after Thanksgiving.

But with Bethesda's own Pete Hines reporting that most PS3 gamers aren't experiencing problems, we wanted to try to get down to the bottom of what's going on. Are most PS3 gamers really not experiencing problems? You voted, and we have the answers below. Let's dive into the data.

The first question we asked was a fundamental one... how long have you been playing? 26,533 gamers voted, and here's what they said:

• 10 Hours or Less - 4,304 Votes (16.22%)
• 11-20 Hours - 5,759 Votes (21.71%)
• 21-30 Hours - 5,606 Votes (21.13%)
• 31-40 Hours - 3,774 Votes (14.22%)
• 41+ Hours - 7,090 Votes (26.72%)

As you can see, the answers ran the gamut from less than ten hours to more than 41, though the highest amount of answers were for 41 hours or more, suggesting not only that people are playing Skyrim obsessively, but that the slew of reported issues with Skyrim on PlayStation 3 could be attributed to long game time. Of course, that makes reading through the next set of data a little more complicated.

Next, we asked gamers to tell us how big their save files are. This is important because it's been reported that save files at, around and over 6 MB are especially prone to issues. The size of the save file could easily be found out by looking at the Save Data Utility on the PS3's XMB. Fewer players answered this than the previous question: 22,118. Here's what they said:

A beautiful landscape.

• 2-4 MB - 3,108 Votes (14.05%)
• 4-6 MB - 5,256 Votes (23.76%)
• 6-8 MB - 6,158 Votes (27.84%)
• 8-10 MB - 3,734 Votes (16.88%)
• 10+ MB - 3,862 Votes (17.46%)

Again, votes are spread around pretty well, though what's interesting is that, corresponding with how long people have played, it appears that most people have a save file in between six and eight megs in size. Few people seem to get above eight megs, though there is a substantial number of people with a hefty save file of ten or more megabytes. Could it be that people are playing differently, thus negating the huge save files that are plaguing some gamers, and presumably making them more susceptible to issues?

Finally, we come to the real crux of the issue, the actual problems PS3 gamers are experiencing with Skyrim. Unlike the other two questions, this question was open-ended, with voters allowed to pick more than one applicable issue. Here's what you said over 36,922 votes:

Sweet mother of God.

• Severe Framerate Drops - 13,301 Votes (36.02%)
• Textures Fail to Load - 7,026 Votes (19.03%)
• Excessive Game Freezes - 7,509 Votes (20.34%)
• None of the Above - 9,086 Votes (24.61%)

By far, most players who participated in the poll are experiencing severe framerate drops to the tune of more than a third of respondents. Texture issues and excessive game freezes amount for another nearly 40% combined issues, though it's certainly worth noting that nearly a quarter of all those PS3 Skyrim players who responded confirmed that they are having none of the three major problems being reported. Assuming 6 MB is the threshold for problems, as has been reported, there could be some relationship between the 75.39% of people who reported some sort of problem and the 62.18% of people with a save file of 6 megs or more.

It's hard to say, what with this study being completely unscientific and all. Still, there's certainly information to garner if you look at some of the numbers.

For starters, people are dumping massive amounts of time into Skyrim. But for a game that could easily take over a hundred hours, if not far more than that, that makes sense. You don't need a poll to know that. What you do need a poll to figure out, however, is that, as mentioned earlier, some people are managing to keep their save files smaller than others. There are factors that could certainly do this -- for instance, dropping random items all over the place, keeping doors open, killing a bunch of characters and causing a bunch of havoc that the game will have to remember will keep the size high -- but it's interesting that some players have wildly varying save file sizes even if they've all played dozens of hours.

Most importantly, however, the problems that PlayStation 3 gamers are having are clearly real, and it seems to be mostly focused around "severe framerate drops." Indeed, just under 25% of participants in the polls state that they are having no issues at all, meaning about 75% of gamers that participated are having one of the three problems listed.

It's worth noting that Bethesda has promised to release a patch after Thanksgiving, and it's presumed that this patch will fix some or all of these issues, or at least help to alleviate them.

In the meantime, know that you're not alone, Skyrim players on PlayStation 3. And a big thank you to all who took part in our polls, and for giving us some data to work with.

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