Black Myth: Wu Kong [PC, Consoles]

[iroboto]

Which again has nothing to do with MS not having the money or anything substantial to counter. They just don't believe in it to bother.

A budget is set for the year for the division. You can’t just Willy dilly pull money from the bank of MS as much as you want when you want it. It’s not clear to me if you understand how large corporations do budget and operations. Even within Xbox division every dollar is going to be scrutinized. All of their money is invested into game pass and first party studios at this time. As stated earlier, they can’t counter because they have their money tied up elsewhere. It’s not a matter of caring and they can’t go to MS if they’ve allocated all their budget for other things already.

 

[Nesh]

A budget is set for the year for the division. You can’t just Willy dilly pull money from the bank of MS as much as you want when you want it. It’s not clear to me if you understand how large corporations do budget and operations. Even within Xbox division every dollar is going to be scrutinized. All of their money is invested into game pass and first party studios at this time. As stated earlier, they can’t counter because they have their money tied up elsewhere. It’s not a matter of caring and they can’t go to MS if they’ve allocated all their budget for other things already.

No where did I suggest MS Willy dilly pulling money. You are constantly putting words in other people's mouths to win an argument and making up stories and assumptions that are not backed up by available info. I suggest you change tactic.
If MS wants to increase/release budget for that specific purpose they have more that ability to do so than Sony and thats reflected in Sony's significantly lower ability to meet their obligations. You are conflating MS's decision to allocate specific budget for a specific strategy for a specific division, with not having enough resources. These two are NOT the same.

Just as Sony has even less resources than MS by a humongous difference, but decide to allocate their money to divisions differently (i.e Playstation) and within that division the management forms different strategy. Both companies, even if MS has tremendously higher resources to do so, they still work with rational thinking and will allocate most money (either correctly or wrongfully) where they believe it is most worth it. Not deciding to increase the budget towards XBOX to assist developers has nothing to do with with poor MS not having the resources to counter. They just don't do it, because their strategy is different, and thus their budget has been set for other purposes i.e Gamepass. Thats all there is.

 

[rntongo]

A budget is set for the year for the division. You can’t just Willy dilly pull money from the bank of MS as much as you want when you want it. It’s not clear to me if you understand how large corporations do budget and operations. Even within Xbox division every dollar is going to be scrutinized. All of their money is invested into game pass and first party studios at this time. As stated earlier, they can’t counter because they have their money tied up elsewhere. It’s not a matter of caring and they can’t go to MS if they’ve allocated all their budget for other things already.

There’s no way MS didnt properly budget for the Xbox division to support 3rd part developers. 100% impossible because their whole strategy is more encompassing than even Sony’s. MS makes gaming APIs available for all OEMs not just Xbox. They must have enough funds to fully support the Xbox division including unforseen circumstances or emergencies. In fact its much easier for MS than Sony because they could get engineers from various other teams working on graphics apis who are salaried full time employees and assign them to these tasks.

MS has a lot of SWEs working on research related to Graphics APIs who are not directly under gaming and these guys know the inside out of Direct X as well. So it all comes down to mismanagement imho. I know some SWEs working at MS and its a company with enormous resources, there’s no way they could fail to support Game Science. But if there is a failure to agree on requirements between senior management of Xbox and Game Science it can lead to such delays. This is very common in software development. I believe Sony is just currently better in this regard due to better management in the gaming division which leads to clear requirements.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

No where did I suggest MS Willy dilly pulling money. You are constantly putting words in other people's mouths to win an argument and making up stories and assumptions that are not backed up by available info.

No, people just talk at cross purposes. What I'm seeing here is two folk talking about different contexts with the same words. MS as an orgnaisation easily has enough money to fund a paltry timed exclusivity deal on an unknown IP. MS's Gaming Division possibly does not have the money - the freely available cash earmarked for deals - to make a deal.

We can have
"MS" == "All of Microsoft", or "Just the Gaming Division"
"Money" == "all the money MS has access to", or "just the money the division has with potential controls over how they are allowed to spend it"

If MS wants to increase/release budget for that specific purpose they have more that ability to do so than Sony and thats reflected in Sony's significantly lower ability to meet their obligations. You are conflating MS's decision to allocate specific budget for a specific strategy for a specific division, with not having enough resources. These two are NOT the same.

We all know that. And so with that knowledge, and knowing Iroboto is wanting a sane discussion and isn't pushing an agenda, the interpretation shifts into what he is actually saying (unless I'm reading him wrong ). I'm seeing more a problem of specific word choice and people, as always happens, not trying alternative interpretations to their default to try to understand, or ask questions to understand, but instead just reassert their position using the same words that aren't working.

Both of you are making sense to me. Just getting two different arguments using the same terms.

 

[iroboto]

There’s no way MS didnt properly budget for the Xbox division to support 3rd part developers. 100% impossible because their whole strategy is more encompassing than even Sony’s. MS makes gaming APIs available for all OEMs not just Xbox. They must have enough funds to fully support the Xbox division including unforseen circumstances or emergencies. In fact it’s much easier for MS than Sony because they could get engineers from various other teams working on graphics apis who are salaried full time employees and assign them to these tasks.

There’s a large difference between supporting third party developers, and being able to fund a game to move the release date up.

 

[Nesh]

There’s a large difference between supporting third party developers, and being able to fund a game to move the release date up.

They funded a game to be released in a shitty state? There is no evidence that this happened. It is a wild guesstimation that makes no sense and a wasteful use of resources. This has already been covered in many posts above. The info available shows that most likely it was Series S that prevented a simultaneous release on X. Why are we still discussing this?

 

[rntongo]

There’s a large difference between supporting third party developers, and being able to fund a game to move the release date up.

Yes agreed, there's been no evidence Sony paid anything to move up the release date though. In fact Game Science stated that the delay for the Xbox version was due to "optimizations". I think in all this is a mismanaged division where requirments are not clear and there is no developer support. Case in point below, there's a game ready for the Series S|X and its being delayed because the devs are not getting clear communication.I see this everyday as a SWE where there's a miscommunication between stakeholders. I think at MS its getting worse average. And this miscommunication comes from Phil moving in multiple directions at once.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1830674296978407743

I suspect Game Science faced similar issues but even worse couldnt get the game running properly on the S and didnt receive the necessary help from MS. A PS5 version of the title can easily run on the Series X. I'm pretty certain the Series X is running Black Myth Wukong at bare minimum just as good as the base PS5. But there must be miscommunication and lethargy from MS in getting the game ready for the Series S. Yet they still require it to meet strict console requirements including feature parity.

All talk about some sort of exclusivity deal or payment to get the game released early doesnt add up to me. I'm glad Jez is now coming out to say Sony didnt pay anything.

 

[iroboto]

Yes agreed, there's been no evidence Sony paid anything to move up the release date though. In fact Game Science stated that the delay for the Xbox version was due to "optimizations". I think in all this is a mismanaged division where requirments are not clear and there is no developer support. Case in point below, there's a game ready for the Series S|X and its being delayed because the devs are not getting clear communication.I see this everyday as a SWE where there's a miscommunication between stakeholders. I think at MS its getting worse average. And this miscommunication comes from Phil moving in multiple directions at once.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1830674296978407743

I suspect Game Science faced similar issues but even worse couldnt get the game running properly on the S and didnt receive the necessary help from MS. A PS5 version of the title can easily run on the Series X. I'm pretty certain the Series X is running Black Myth Wukong at bare minimum just as good as the base PS5. But there must be miscommunication and lethargy from MS in getting the game ready for the Series S. Yet they still require it to meet strict console requirements including feature parity.

All talk about some sort of exclusivity deal or payment to get the game released early doesnt add up to me. I'm glad Jez is now coming out to say Sony didnt pay anything.

Those are effectively business reasons why the game can’t come to Xbox. Full stop; the reason why everyone here is saying it’s not coming to Xbox is because of Series S and that’s a technical reason (considering the PS3 era, scaling to S should be a breeze) and yet they managed.

It’s a precedent I don’t think Xbox would allow. Because everyone is going to stop doing Simultaneous releases if that were true.

So that logically doesn’t make sense, since for the last 4 years we’ve had simultaneous release for nearly all the titles, and they had less experience with Series S not more, with some exceptions, mainly BG3.

If they are business reasons to skip Xbox, for whatever they are, that could also be possible. But series S isn’t the cause for that, if a company wants money then they would follow the previous pattern of simultaneous release and net more profit and therefore worth the effort. As we know asynchronous releases tend to result in far fewer sales than a simultaneous launch, window timing etc.

So the only reason you’d skip Xbox on simultaneous release is if there is no money to be made on Xbox anymore given the cost to port it, in other words; delaying the launch for a simultaneous release will result in less revenue than launching it on PS5 and then Xbox.

But we don’t see this for game pass titles. So following closely, if you don’t get a game pass deal, then this may be the new norm.

 

[rntongo]

Those are effectively business reasons why the game can’t come to Xbox. Full stop; the reason why everyone here is saying it’s not coming to Xbox is because of Series S and that’s a technical reason (considering the PS3 era, scaling to S should be a breeze) and yet they managed.

It’s a precedent I don’t think Xbox would allow. Because everyone is going to stop doing Simultaneous releases if that were true.

So that logically doesn’t make sense, since for the last 4 years we’ve had simultaneous release for nearly all the titles, and they had less experience with Series S not more, with some exceptions, mainly BG3.

If they are business reasons to skip Xbox, for whatever they are, that could also be possible. But series S isn’t the cause for that, if a company wants money then they would follow the previous pattern of simultaneous release and net more profit and therefore worth the effort. As we know asynchronous releases tend to result in far fewer sales than a simultaneous launch, window timing etc.

So the only reason you’d skip Xbox on simultaneous release is if there is no money to be made on Xbox anymore given the cost to port it, in other words; delaying the launch for a simultaneous release will result in less revenue than launching it on PS5 and then Xbox.

But we don’t see this for game pass titles. So following closely, if you don’t get a game pass deal, then this may be the new norm.

I think you have a different perspective from mine which is fine, I could be wrong. But I think Xbox will either have to change requirements wrt feature parity as well as improve communication or there will continue to be such delays. Especially as the gen progresses with games becoming more complex.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Dune: Awakening on Xbox Series S will be a "challenge", developer says

Funcom - the developer behind Dune: Awakening - has admitted getting the game ready for Microsoft's lower powered Xbox Series S will be a "challenge".

www.eurogamer.net

Speaking with Connor Makar from VG247, Dune: Awakening's chief product officer Scott Junior said "there's a lot of optimisations we need to do before we release on the Xbox". He noted this is "one of the reasons we're coming out on PC first".

 

[Below2D]

Beat the game and secret final boss. Incredibly fun. Already started NG+.

 

[iroboto]

I think you have a different perspective from mine which is fine, I could be wrong. But I think Xbox will either have to change requirements wrt feature parity as well as improve communication or there will continue to be such delays. Especially as the gen progresses with games becoming more complex.

From my POV. If series S and PS5 were reversed in population, this would be a non discussion. There would always be a series S version and it would always launch on time. That’s why the whole Series S (hard to code for) argument doesn’t sit with me. If it has the largest amount of ROI, they would just do it.

What it signals to me, assuming Sony didn’t assist in anyway to move their release up, if the ROI isn’t there, it’s about the only time you skip a platform or delay it because it will make no difference.

Releasing a game on a platform is always first and foremost a business decision before a technical one.

 

[iroboto]

Dune: Awakening on Xbox Series S will be a "challenge", developer says

Funcom - the developer behind Dune: Awakening - has admitted getting the game ready for Microsoft's lower powered Xbox Series S will be a "challenge".

www.eurogamer.net

The skipped part in that article:

Enter the Xbox Series S - which the game is still set to release on alongside the PlayStation 5 and PC

However, given the ambitious level of scale the game is going for, we asked Junior if it'll still demand a lot from lower-spec machines, even with all the work done on optimisation. His response was optimistic. " Yeah, yeah it does. But it will still perform well on hardware that's years and years old. We'll be able to do it!"

This is what i would consider normal for release plans. Probably less of a challenge than trying to make a x360 and PS3 version, and developers were fine with that.

 

[Globalisateur]

Yes agreed, there's been no evidence Sony paid anything to move up the release date though. In fact Game Science stated that the delay for the Xbox version was due to "optimizations". I think in all this is a mismanaged division where requirments are not clear and there is no developer support. Case in point below, there's a game ready for the Series S|X and its being delayed because the devs are not getting clear communication.I see this everyday as a SWE where there's a miscommunication between stakeholders. I think at MS its getting worse average. And this miscommunication comes from Phil moving in multiple directions at once.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1830674296978407743

I suspect Game Science faced similar issues but even worse couldnt get the game running properly on the S and didnt receive the necessary help from MS. A PS5 version of the title can easily run on the Series X. I'm pretty certain the Series X is running Black Myth Wukong at bare minimum just as good as the base PS5. But there must be miscommunication and lethargy from MS in getting the game ready for the Series S. Yet they still require it to meet strict console requirements including feature parity.

All talk about some sort of exclusivity deal or payment to get the game released early doesnt add up to me. I'm glad Jez is now coming out to say Sony didnt pay anything.

Yep not need for a conspiracy. It's just another sign of incompetence from MS: Incompetence when they decided to have 2 consoles, when they designed the weaker one and supposedly the immature tools according to some experts and finally how they are (not) helping developers building their games on those 2 platforms.

 

[rntongo]

From my POV. If series S and PS5 were reversed in population, this would be a non discussion. There would always be a series S version and it would always launch on time. That’s why the whole Series S (hard to code for) argument doesn’t sit with me. If it has the largest amount of ROI, they would just do it.

There was no way Series S was ever going to outsell the PS5 like some at MS even dreamed for obvious reasons. Its a well known weaker device launched alongside a more powerful appropriately priced device(Series X) competing for the same home console market. The only way MS would have had two SKUs with the weaker device outselling the PS5 is if they had launched a Series X and a handheld with two separate devkits, marketed and developed for as two different devices. With the handheld going after the handheld market and the Series X going after the home console. But inherently there was no way Series S was going to outsell the PS5 when it didnt even have more demand than the Series X.

They created a device no developer asked for nor wanted and brushed aside years of developer feedback requesting for doubling of RAM as a minimum. Devs want to build on the most user friendly platform with enough memory for their creative tasks this was one of the reasons the 360 just kicked the PS3's azz despite the PS3 having a fairly better CPU.
For example for GTA 6 I think there may be situations where MS will have to cave in and let the Series S version ship without certain features available on the X or in a certain state they normally wouldnt have accepted.

What it signals to me, assuming Sony didn’t assist in anyway to move their release up, if the ROI isn’t there, it’s about the only time you skip a platform or delay it because it will make no difference.

Agreed because the ROI on Series S isnt worth the technical hurdles. It makes sense for Game Science to delay the Series version. This is their first non mobile game iirc. Why should they go through so many hoops spending unnecessary time making memory optimizations to get the game running on a device with half the install base of the PS5 and with most consumers on the Series S on a subscription service?

 

[Nesh]

From my POV. If series S and PS5 were reversed in population, this would be a non discussion. There would always be a series S version and it would always launch on time. That’s why the whole Series S (hard to code for) argument doesn’t sit with me. If it has the largest amount of ROI, they would just do it.

What it signals to me, assuming Sony didn’t assist in anyway to move their release up, if the ROI isn’t there, it’s about the only time you skip a platform or delay it because it will make no difference.

Releasing a game on a platform is always first and foremost a business decision before a technical one.

You are jumping from one argument to the other. First you claimed it was Sony moneyhatting/funding, now it's the S sales not being enough for them. Which btw isn't exactly a good assumption, since the devs won't be treating S as a separate console in terms of market share, but as part of the total Series market share. And in order to sell to that market share, they have to release on both S and X simultaneously. But bringing up the ROI for the devs, that also counts for MS. Apparently if MS couldnt see a good ROI on BG3 they wouldn't have bothered much with support either. But certainly if that meant something substantial for GP they would have certainly bothered

 

[iroboto]

You are jumping from one argument to the other. First you claimed it was Sony moneyhatting/funding, now it's the S sales not being enough for them. Which btw isn't exactly a good assumption, since the devs won't be treating S as a separate console in terms of market share, but as part of the total Series market share. And in order to sell to that market share, they have to release on both S and X simultaneously. But bringing up the ROI for the devs, that also counts for MS. Apparently if MS couldnt see a good ROI on BG3 they wouldn't have bothered much with support either. But certainly if that meant something substantial for GP they would have certainly bothered

That’s bold.

First you tell me to switch topics and stop putting words in your mouth as a tactic to win arguments and to give up. Frankly, I wasn’t, but I digress.

In an effort to move discussion forward and support my fellow mods, instead of harping on the topic which I’m not sure yet that we are aligned, I switch perspectives to support a reasonable discussion as to why a company may skip Xbox on launch (which frankly supports your position) and suddenly you’re upset that I moved position? I think YOU are the one trying to win an argument.

Firstly, I haven’t reversed my claim on Sony helping to fund the development on BMWK, and at any point did I ever say Sony money hatted the title. I never claimed Sony made an exclusive deal to keep the title off Xbox. Ever, re-read all my posts. Moving your release timing up is not that.

When it comes to discussing this, I just don’t care to point out the sources that are out there. What’s the worth really if we will never know the truth, I don’t want this circular endless debate to continue. There are certainly tweets out there that ratify Sony’s involvement here in helping develop the title for ps5 to the point that release timing could have been moved up, but these are at best tweets, so what value is it.

assuming that was false, that only leaves why a company would skip Xbox, not series S, but Xbox. my point has nothing to do with Series S, but Xbox as a whole. If the majority of the Xbox population is only playing games on gamepass as an expectation and no longer purchasing titles as normal, then there are not profits to be on Xbox without a game pass deal.

Thus no game pass deal = no simultaneous release.

Series S, as much as a technical challenge it may be, if there were huge profits to be made off the console, as a business decision would have done simultaneous release on that console to nab those profits.

Technical challenge is not the reason why a company would move forward with releasing on one platform and then another. You are either out of money and need to release now, or there is no real substantial money to be made on Xbox to delay the release for a simultaneous release, porting costs money, so there needs to be some sales for it to be worth doing, even more so for a simultaneous release

 

[Nesh]

assuming that was false, that only leaves why a company would skip Xbox, not series S, but Xbox. my point has nothing to do with Series S, but Xbox as a whole.

Because XBOX was not skipped? It was delayed due to the fact that there is always one version of the game sold that runs on both S and X?

If the majority of the Xbox population is only playing games on gamepass as an expectation and no longer purchasing titles as normal, then there are not profits to be on Xbox without a game pass deal.

Thus no game pass deal = no simultaneous release.

And who's fault is that?

Series S, as much as a technical challenge it may be, if there were huge profits to be made off the console, as a business decision would have done simultaneous release on that console to nab those profits.

Regardless how the game runs on S?

Technical challenge is not the reason why a company would move forward with releasing on one platform and then another. You are either out of money and need to release now, or there is no real substantial money to be made on Xbox to delay the release for a simultaneous release, porting costs money, so there needs to be some sales for it to be worth doing, even more so for a simultaneous release

I don't understand this argument. Delaying the PS5 version because of technical issues on S makes zero business sense. Releasing the game on Series at the same time as on PS5 because it runs well on X (which is an assumption considering the rumors of memory leaks and lack of communication from MS) while being barely playable on S also makes zero business sense since X and S are essentially one platform running the same game at different settings. Not to mention the feature parity info being a problem that was required by MS and the devs were waiting for an exemption to be made. There was no way to release on X and skip S since the game would unavoidably be sold for blth. It was a recipe for disaster to release a game that a large portion of Series owners can play and a large portion of Series would have been experiencing game breaking technical issues simultaneously. And it made no sense to delay sales of PS5 because of another platform.

 

[iroboto]

Because XBOX was not skipped? It was delayed due to the fact that there is always one version of the game sold that runs on both S and X?

It was skipped for simultaneous release. There’s no information that Xbox consoles are ready for release and only series S is holding it back. Game science indicates that they are not ready to release the Xbox version, that’s a sign of a lack of investment in the Xbox release, not a series S challenge.

Regardless how the game runs on S?

Game science has not gone on record about series S performance, this is all driven narrative from Twitter. But more importantly business is what drives what the studio does, developers don’t choose it. If Xbox simultaneous release was worth many millions and significantly less if they didn’t, they would do it.

I don't understand this argument. Delaying the PS5 version because of technical issues on S makes zero business sense.

It’s because studios can lose money sales for pissing off player bases, or more importantly are now launching into a release window that is no longer advantageous; ie the Xbox version gets released when COD does. Release window timing is a critical moment to maximize sales.

Furthermore, they could lose leverage with the platform in future deals.

I don’t really care about whose fault it is that MS is missing the deals or getting the releases. I am not trying to cheer or boo one team over the other. I am trying my best to discuss what likely went down, the outcome is not relevant, I’m not vested into the outcome or the root cause.

In a forum that is technical, and a world that is no longer caring about technical details, a lot more people are interested in discussing the business aspect of games, I’m more than happy to, but pointing out one thing or another is not necessarily siding with them or being against them. Sometimes it just is what it is.

 

[Nesh]

It was skipped for simultaneous release. There’s no information that Xbox consoles are ready for release and only series S is holding it back. Game science indicates that they are not ready to release the Xbox version, that’s a sign of a lack of investment in the Xbox release, not a series S challenge.

Game science has not gone on record about series S performance, this is all driven narrative from Twitter. But more importantly business is what drives what the studio does, developers don’t choose it. If Xbox simultaneous release was worth many millions and significantly less if they didn’t, they would do it.

It’s because studios can lose money sales for pissing off player bases, or more importantly are now launching into a release window that is no longer advantageous; ie the Xbox version gets released when COD does. Release window timing is a critical moment to maximize sales.

Furthermore, they could lose leverage with the platform in future deals.

I don’t really care about whose fault it is that MS is missing the deals or getting the releases. I am not trying to cheer or boo one team over the other. I am trying my best to discuss what likely went down, the outcome is not relevant, I’m not vested into the outcome or the root cause.

In a forum that is technical, and a world that is no longer caring about technical details, a lot more people are interested in discussing the business aspect of games, I’m more than happy to, but pointing out one thing or another is not necessarily siding with them or being against them. Sometimes it just is what it is.

So what is your conclusion? That XBOX Series did not get a simultaneous release with PS5 for no good reason despite being bad business practice to lose months of sales?
That Sony helped the version of the PS5 to get released sooner whereas MS has not helped because they prefer to invest on Gamepass?
That the XBOX version was not even worth it to bother as much by Game Science because sales were expected to be low anyways?
Or that Sony had a deal to get exclusivity for just a few months?

I am trying to understand your point and I really don't understand it. The only scenario that makes sense from Game Science's perspective as a business is that they didnt want to piss it's player base, destroy their reputation and sales on XBOX, by releasing a game that is unplayable on a huge portion of players who will buy the game.

edit: Sorry I got confused. It's over midnight here. Now I noticed you are talking about Wukong. I thought you were referring to BG3 which is what I was referring to.