Cyberpunk 2077 on Consoles is a Disaster and Sony and Microsoft Need to Take Responsibility | Winter Spectacular 2020
In the two weeks following Cyberpunk 2077’s release, its status as a mass of hype and excitement has been reduced to nothing, all thanks to arguably the most disastrous launch in video game history. A title that not even the likes of EA or Bethesda could dread bearing. Whilst I personally enjoyed Cyberpunk thoroughly throughout my playthrough, its issues are stark and will potentially have wide-ranging impacts on the industry.
ONWARD! TO THE FUTURE!
These issues have been made known, widespread, across the industry and of course on social media, where players have shown off uncountable instances of bugs and glitches. T-posing, non-existent AI and even falling out the game world into a great void, while humourous, point to a product that clearly just was not ready for release. It simply needed more time before being let out the gate.
Perhaps more damning, and the most obviously damaging factor to CD Projekt Red’s reputation is the state of the game on older consoles (PS4 and Xbox One). Having previously struggled with optimising The Witcher III for consoles, it was obvious that it would be a much bigger challenge getting Cyberpunk to run smoothly on both machines, as well as their half-step counterparts. Instead, the console versions were clearly ignored as CDPR were willingly and wanting to show the game only on PC, where everything looked much better prerelease. Console versions were not shown until the last minute.
I kinda miss the days of Roach teleporting on top of roofs.
The result? One of the worst porting disasters in recent memory. Low resolutions, frame rates reminiscent of a poor N64 title and an all-around a poor experience. Those playing the PS4 and Xbox One version on the next-gen consoles and the enhanced last-gen consoles have had a slightly better time, but the favour has been returned with constant crashes during gameplay. To compound this the official PS5 and Xbox Series X | S versions of the game are still without a release date.
In fact, the console port’s below-average reception was enough for Sony to perform an unprecedented act; pulling Cyberpunk from the PlayStation Store and accepting refunds. Microsoft has similarly offered full refunds regardless of playtime and has issued warnings to prospective players still on Xbox One about the games performance and unfinished state. However, both Sony and Microsoft equally share the blame for their handling of the debacle that is Cyberpunk 2077.
Oh, hey buddy. You don’t look to great. Do you need a lie down?
The problems lie all in the heart of their certification. Sony and Microsoft are strict with their requirements of features needed for a game to launch on their consoles, and even require some technical standards to be met. Take the concise description by developer Rami Ismail. Certification ensures that your game, by default, should not crash or cause your console to stop functioning, alongside other guidelines such as showing the correct console buttons, etc.
With the state that Cyberpunk was clearly in, with crashes and unfinished visuals, it would have made sense for the console manufacturers to reject the game for release on console until they could ensure a better experience for those playing on their platforms. However, waivers exist in certification, whereby the developer can request a waiver for issues they believe they can fix between the game going through certification and release. In Cyberpunk’s case, CDPR seems to have promised to make sure the game was running properly on consoles for release, thus being given the benefit of the doubt by both platform holders.
But a waiver can be rejected, and that is what should have happened here. Crashes are rife within almost every version of Cyberpunk on console, and it was clearly not ready for release. Sony and Microsoft should be equally at fault for allowing the game to release in a completely broken state at launch. They put too much trust in CDPR and are paying an equal price for it, just as much as the developers are. Certification is about making sure your game is playable and not just barely holding things together enough that the game can be booted up...
Let us also not forget just how archaic Sony’s refund policy is. They could not have been worse prepared for a case like Cyberpunk. This is because if you download or preload a game on your Sony console, you cannot refund it at all unless the game is broken or unplayable on release. And even if you have not played it, it needs to be refunded within two weeks of purchasing. Sony removing Cyberpunk from the PlayStation Store is unprecedented in that no major AAA game has been given the boot from a platform holder’s online store. Refunds regardless of playtime have also been issued, but it did not have to be like this. Had Sony had a decent refund policy like Valve and Microsoft does, it would not have necessitated a drastic removal from the store. Archaic policies and trusting publishers too much only for them to underdeliver puts platform holders just as much to blame as the publishers that rushed the game out and caused this situation.
Wake up Samurai, we have a PS4 to burn.
For years, we have seen AAA games have gotten to release with bugs, glitches, and crashes on console and only the promise of delivering a large patch that will rectify these issues at some point. Cyberpunk has to be the final straw for this mentality, and with that said, the certification process must change. Sony and Microsoft should not hand out waivers with the benefit of the doubt, and thusly how games are tested before release surely must change too. This has bled into mainstream news and the entire industry has egg on their faces. They must not be sorry. They must be better.
