The head of 343 Industries has stepped forward to comment on the server-side problems that have plagued Halo: The Master Chief Collection's online multiplayer over the past two weeks.

The Xbox Wire has released a public address written by Bonnie Ross, the founder and head of 343 Industries, that comments on the troubles that have plagued Halo: The Master Chief Collection since the anthology launched on Nov. 11 for the Xbox One. The Master Chief Collection has had a bunch of online server issues when it has come to the stability and connection speeds of its online multiplayer, especially when it comes to its matchmaking.

While Ross did not offer any specific kind of resolution, she did mention that her team is working around the clock at trying to make things right:

While our team works on continual improvements and towards solutions, my commitment to you is that we will take care of all owners of Halo: The Master Chief Collection.  Our primary and continued focus is first on fixing the issues at hand.  Once we’ve done that, we will detail how we will make this right with our fans.

On the matchmaking front, we have encountered unexpected issues that were not apparent in our internal test environment and that have resulted in a frustrating experience, including long matchmaking times and low session success rates.  Within 343 Industries and Xbox, I can assure you that resolving these issues is our #1 priority.  We continue to partner with the Xbox platform team to analyze all data to make ongoing server-side adjustments to continually improve the matchmaking experience.  We are also preparing additional content updates that will address existing campaign, UI, and other issues to improve the overall experience.  With each update we will carefully analyze data to confirm that the improvements we’re seeing internally are also happening with fans at home.

343 Industries is planning multiple content updates that we should be downloading over the next few weeks. There will also be multiple upgrades to their servers which should provide improved connections right away without the need for downloading. This is pretty much the standard PR response we have seen from the other games launched this month that were plagued with tons of issues.

We feel like this has become the industry's standard:

  • Rush the development of a game so it can be on store shelves in time for the holiday season.
  • The rushed game's issues can be resolved in post-release patching.
  • Provide a PR-friendly statement about the game's issues, say something along the lines of "it's not what the fans deserve" and use a phrase like "our teams are working around the clock" to show the studio still cares about our opinions of the rushed product.
  • Some freebie small piece of DLC might be offered as a kind of collateral/peace offering.

Apparently, Chief still has that hangover:

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