Skyrim on PS3: Took an arrow to the knee

For the past few of months, there have been widespread reports of horrendous lag and framerate drops with the PS3 version of Skyrim. The lag gets gradually worse as the user continues to put in hours and their save file continues to grow. After about 60 hours and a save file over 6 megabytes in size, the game degenerates into an almost unplayable state. The game is said to perform infinitely better on PC and Xbox 360. Or so the story goes…

This week, Bethesda announced an upcoming patch to correct the problems. I’ve been playing Skyrim more than any married, full-time employed person should during the time that I’ve owned it, and just hit the landmark 60 hours the other night. Coincidentally, my save file is right about 11 MB now, well above the stated 6 MB size. I’ve experienced almost no glitches, and nothing to agree with the aforementioned issues.

If my memory serves me, I’ve experienced two game freezes and minimal framerate drops, and all of it has occurred while I was background downloading content from the PlayStation Store. Since running the game is I/O intensive on the HDD, as is downloading content from the store, this does not surprise me in the least. I’ve seen videos of the supposed problem, but I can’t help to think there’s a good explanation that doesn’t fall squarely on the shoulders of Bethesda.

My question is this: Is there really a problem, or are users complaining about nothing? I bring this up, not only because I have yet to experience any significant problems during my significant time spent in Skyrim, but also because Skyrim on PS3 runs noticeably smoother than Oblivion did on the Xbox 360. Even at the worst of times, Skyrim compares nicely to the previous Elder Scrolls title at its best.

I know, comparing Skyrim to a game released over 5 years ago isn’t fair, but it’s the best frame of reference that I have, and users were crying foul back then as well. Personally, I had more problems with Oblivion on the Xbox 360 than I did with Oblivion on PS3 (yes I did play through the entire game on both consoles), and I’ve yet to experience problems with Skyrim on PS3. Maybe my life experience has made me a skeptic, but I’m not buying it. At its best, Skyrim is an ambitious game on a grand scale. At its worst, it is a flawed game with an occasional glitch and framerate hiccup, but not unplayable by any means.

And now I open up the floodgates: Have you experienced problems with Skyrim on your PS3? Am I an idiot for insinuating that there is no issue? Let me know in the comments below.