Xbox woes abound as the Black Myth Wukong situation gets weirder, indies get frustrated over lack of communication, and Series S continues offering a "challenge" to devs
Sep. 3, 2024Xbox, what the hell is going on?
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Dune: Awakeningchief product officer Scott Junior rather gently indicated that’s still the case in a recent interview withVG247. “It’s one of the reasons we’re coming out on PC first,” Junior said. “There’s a lot of optimisations we need to do before we release on the Xbox. But yeah, Xbox Series S is a challenge.”
That quote comes just after theothercontroversy aroundBlack Myth: Wukonghas been coming to a head. Developer Game Science said months before launch that it was"optimizing the Xbox Series X|S version to meet our quality standards, so it won’t release simultaneously with the other platforms.“At the time, the delay of the Xbox version of such a visually impressive game seemed like a sure signal that the Series S problem had struck once again.
The Black Myth: Wukong saga only got stranger last week, whenForbes contributor Paul Tassireported via an anonymous source that the game was delayed on Xbox due to an “exclusivity deal.“IGNcorroborated that report with its own sources. Other insiders soon after definitively asserted that there’s no exclusivity deal keeping Wukong off Xbox. IGN has stood by its original report, and Tassi has sincereiteratedthat he was “specifically told it’s not a tech issue for Xbox causing delay.”
It’s allextremelyconfusing, which is par for the course on Xbox’s relationship with its third-party developers at this point. The dev behind theSoulslike Enotria has announced an indefinite delay to the game’s Xbox version, claiming that Xbox has ignored its emails for months. “You can ask Xbox why they haven’t answered us for two months,” the studio said in a message to fans. “Obviously they don’t care about Enotria and they don’t care about you.”
Taken in aggregate, what does all this mean? Maybe nothing! These could all be isolated cases of various Xbox policies coming to public light in poor circumstances. But if you took an optimistic view of the Series S when it was first announced, or hoped thatMicrosoftwouldkeep the lights on at studios like Tango Gameworks, or bought a modern Xbox to playexclusives like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, well… It’s getting increasingly difficult to keep that optimism alive.
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