A pair of different developers are citing problems with both the Xbox S and Microsoft’s approval process, respectively.
The developer of Dune Awakening has referenced the Xbox Series S as a challenge not found on PlayStation and PC when it comes to a multi-platform release:
“So, it’s one of the reasons we’re coming out on PC first. There’s a lot of optimizations we need to do before we release on the Xbox. But yeah, Xbox Series S is a challenge,” said chief product officer Scott Junior via VGC.
He does say “we’ll be able to do it” when it comes to making the game perform on lower spec machines, but this is far from the first time the Series S has been brought up as an obstacle.
Then, there’s a situation happening presently with the developer of Entoria: The Last Song, which posted about an “indefinite delay” on Xbox citing “challenges” on the platform that have delayed its release.
The message is diplomatic but on their community Discord, things got a lot more direct and heated regarding Microsoft. And it’s not a Series S issue, where reportedly the game is ready for that system. And no secret Sony deal either (yes, yes). Here’s the CEO Jacky Greco citing Microsoft’s sheer lack of communication about the release:
“You can ask Xbox why they haven’t answered us for 2 months. Obviously they don’t care about Enotria and they don’t care about you…The context is open a store page and submission [sic], we’ve Xbox Series X|S version ready, but we can’t proceed with submission and release, I spent a lot of money for porting and they decided to ignore us.”
This all comes in the wake of a controversial report by uh, me along with IGN citing knowledgeable sources that the high-profile Black Myth: Wukong was not delayed on Xbox because of technical reasons, but because of an exclusivity deal, terms unknown, but it clearly has not involved marketing with Sony. This was disputed by a number of insiders and leakers, but Sony, Game Science and Microsoft have not publicly commented in the wake of that report. Many observers believe the delay is in fact caused by the Series S, though the Enotria situation shows that Microsoft can screw up in other ways, too.
I have asked Microsoft for specific comment on the situations with Dune and Enotria, and I will update if I hear back.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
