2mo ago

Black Myth: Wukong Dev Bemoans Lack of Xbox Version, Points the Finger at Xbox Series S - IGN

www.ign.com Black Myth: Wukong Dev Bemoans Lack of Xbox Version, Points the Finger at Xbox Series S - IGN

The boss of Black Myth: Wukong developer Game Science has pointed the finger at the Xbox Series S over the lack of an Xbox version of the game.

“The only thing missing is the Xbox,” he said, per machine learning translation, “which somehow feels a bit wrong, but that 10GB of shared memory — without years of optimisation experience — is really hard to make work.”

17 comments

Erm. Perhaps with $700 million revenue they could afford to buy some optimisation experience?
- The Series X|S combined has sold less than half the units of the PS5. I can't find sales numbers on the X vs S, but it seems like a lot of studios have determined it's just not really profitable to do that level of optimisation unless you can also squeeze the game onto Switch, which does not have as much overlap in demographics as the Xbox and PlayStation do.
  The article cites Larian having similar issues with Baldur's Gate 3 and Remedy with Alan Wake 2. This isn't just one shitty lazy dev studio- this is Microsoft forcing hard decisions on devs by insisting on walking the Series S like they're in Weekend at Bernie's.
  
  The Series S is so underpowered it can't run backwards compatible games enhanced for the Xbox One X, it can only run standard Xbox One/Xbox One S games.
  Let that sink in for a minute... the last gen Xbox One X is more capable than the Xbox Series S.
  
  MS has sold more S than X, according to a quick google. Not sure why you'd want to port a game to Xbox Series X without making the game playable on S.
- You can't buy your way past low-end hardware.
  
  No, but you can hire for it. This is 100% skill issue.
- It's a ton of work for a tiny bit of revenue, why bother. I'm sure they're just fine where they're at. I'm not coming to Microsoft's defense here whatsoever. The burden of affordability should not be thrown onto game devs

MS just needs to release a gaming OS. Just stop making XBOX hardware and make XBOX an operating system that can be installed on any PC. Like SteamOS.
We have Windows Pro, Windows Home, LTSC, etc. Why not Windows Gaming (XBOX)?
- I have been saying for a few years now that i think Microsoft is getting out of console hardware, and pushing cloud gaming and Game Pass to the switch and PlayStation marketplaces.
  We're already seeing game pass on certain Samsung smart TVs, all you need is a Bluetooth controller, which means the mobile phone market is right around the corner.
- Is it too late for that?
  I don't think a ton of people would care enough in the first place, and those that do would probably prefer SetamOS or PopOS or something else that isn't affiliated with Microsoft.
  
  Is it too late for that?
  Why would it be?
  those that do would probably prefer SetamOS...or something else that isn't affiliated with Microsoft.
  For whatever reason, millions of people obviously still prefer XBOX, in addition to or in place of, PC, Sony, Nintendo, etc. All this does is give those people more options.
  or PopOS
  PopOS does not deliver the console experience that I'm referring to.

17 comments