Game Science finally explains the postponement of the Xbox version of Black Myth Wukong. Apparently PlayStation is not responsible for this delay at all.
Although Black Myth Wukong was among the winners of the Game Awards 2024, it did not win the GOTY award. A “defeat” that stuck in the studio's throat, although their baby still won the “Players' Choice” and “Best Action Game” trophies. Developers can also take solace in the enormous commercial success of their title, which has sold more than 20 million copies and is only available on PS5 and PC.
Black Myth Wukong is still not available on Xbox Series…
Black Myth Wukong was released on August 19, 2024 on PS5 and PC, and a physical PlayStation 5 version has finally been available from the usual retailers since the end of the year. Will Xbox Series X|S players ever get a chance to play it? Absolutely. The port is in development at Game Science, but has been delayed and different explanations have been made for several months.
The studio explained the decision to delay Black Myth Wukong on the Xbox Series “Meet quality standards” from Microsoft. But very quickly another tone came from the Redmond company, indicating that there was a temporary exclusivity with PlayStation. “We cannot comment on agreements between our partners and other platform owners. However, we can confirm that the delay is not due to the restrictions reported to us.” a spokesperson told Windows Central. If there is indeed temporary exclusivity, it is usually stated very often, even systematically, at least for the most recent cases.
…because of the Series S and not the PlayStation?
And a message from Game Science founder and CEO Yocar-Feng ji is exactly what is restoring the truth about “PlayStation exclusivity” today. If the development of Black Myth Wukong on the Xbox Series takes time, in his opinion it is because of the Series S and its memory, as the Internet user eXtas1s suggested a few months ago. « Although there weren't any big surprises, I was feeling a little emotional after winning all those awards at the Steam Awards. The only thing missing is the Xbox version. Which seems a bit unusual, but that 10GB shared memory is really hard to master without a few years of optimization experience ».
Studios have complained multiple times about the limitations of the Xbox Series S and Microsoft's requirement to run games on both models. But conversely, others seem to cope more easily. A question of cursors certainly, but in the case of Black Myth Wukong it seems much more complicated and the developers probably don't want to make any concessions. Game Science's statement therefore risks adding fuel to the fire and reigniting the debate about these two consoles with very different capabilities.
Source: Yocar Feng Ji.
