CDPR co-founder apologizes for Cyberpunk 2077 launch on last gen consoles

[Jet_ski]

Summary

In a video released on the YouTube page of Cyberpunk 2077, Marvin Iwinsky the co-founded of CD Projekt Red apologizes for the last gen console launch issues and says he and the board are responsible for the decision to launch the game. He gives some details about what happened with the launch but they boil down to “it’s hard to make open world games.”

 

The most notable info he shared is the Cyberpunk 2077 updates roadmap. It shows that the next gen console version of the game won’t be release until later in the second half of 2021. The DLC should be released towards in Q2.

 

 

 

 

My thoughts

This is absolutely not cool that they are prioritizing the DLC over the next-gen consoles. They can put it however they want, they are being greedy and want to have a second launch next holiday/gaming season without actually creating more content. They SHOULD have told people at launch that the next-gen version of the game won’t be released until end of 2021.
 

Between PS4 and Xbox One there are over 150 million users who were told they could play this game in December but won’t for another few months.

 

Sources

YouTube video above

[tikker]

It honestly completely passed me by that it hasn't even released on next-gen consoles yet. The release on last-gen would've made sense to me if it launched alongside next-gen. Don't get me wrong, still the worst choice they made, but understandable.

 

Not even releasing the next-gen version yet however? If it needs longer then please let it just take longer Mr. Publisher The industry has no problem making PC gamers wait 1 or 2 years for console exclusives before porting them to PC, why can't we turn it around for once?

[TimeOmnivore]

Didn't really like the fact that this apology video was basically a bunch of excuses that seemed to want to explain why the game was released in such a broken state, but instead left me wondering why they didn't delay the game if there were so many issues. Also don't like how they brushed aside the PC release as if it was fine, even going as far as to say they were very proud of it despite the many issues it has - even aside from the bugs (of which there are still many even of PC), there's clearly a lot of cut content and underdeveloped core features, such as the police having severe AI problems. Its nice that they at least tried to address the problem as opposed to pretending everything was fine, but actions speak louder than words and only time will tell if CDPR will live up to their promises and are able to restore their reputation to some degree.

 

It would be great if Cyberpunk's blunder of a release makes more consumers stop pre-ordering and wait until the game is fully released, playable, and feature-complete before buying - maybe then publishers would actually release games in a complete state rather than giving us a broken mess and promising to fix it later. But that's probably just a fantasy at this point.

[RejZoR]

I'm much less pissed because I don't mind waiting and I've decided to wait until they polish the game and then I'm gonna play it. I had no issues with their first big delay and I don't have the issue now. I rather wait another year than play it with all the insane bugs it had on release to a point you couldn't even play it properly. From the timeline, Patch 1.2 looks like it should land sometime in Marc or April 2021 so I'm just gonna wait for that and then buy it. Will probably have far better experience than people playing it since day 1.

[NeuesTestament]

I seriously thought until now that they alread released on Next Gen consoles. Anyways, I am wondering what hellscape this game would have been if they actually released it on shedule. Either way I will wait for at least another year until I will get it on PC.

[Master Disaster]

3 hours ago, NeuesTestament said:

I seriously thought until now that they alread released on Next Gen consoles. Anyways, I am wondering what hellscape this game would have been if they actually released it on shedule. Either way I will wait for at least another year until I will get it on PC.

You can play the last gen version on next gen systems through backwards compatibility.

 

Honestly, I have to give the board at least a small nod of appreciation for doing this, accepting full responsibility and literally saying "it was management to blame, not the developers" takes some guts.

 

I still wouldn't trust them however this goes a small way towards making up for their actions.

[WereCatf]

5 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Honestly, I have to give the board at least a small nod of appreciation for doing this, accepting full responsibility and literally saying "it was management to blame, not the developers" takes some guts

If nothing else, it's quite refreshing. Can't imagine EA, Ubisoft, Microsoft or any other big name doing the same. Oh, no, they'd rather find a way to blame literally anyone else -- even the players themselves.

[Doobeedoo]

Yeah last gen is a complete mess, but oh wow the game shouldn't have been even targeted for them though. The current gens are out and would've been way better if on launch it was ready for them. Then again, I still see this primarily a PC game though. But they will fix it eventually. I mean in general improve the game aspects that may lack, really this game has a lot of potential to expand on it.

[D13H4RD]

I kinda feel like this apology is more along the lines of "Sorry we got caught" rather than a sincere apology from the deep down about the messed up state of the game's launch.

 

They knew what they were getting into.

[Kisai]

6 hours ago, WereCatf said:

If nothing else, it's quite refreshing. Can't imagine EA, Ubisoft, Microsoft or any other big name doing the same. Oh, no, they'd rather find a way to blame literally anyone else -- even the players themselves.

EA would release bugfixes as surprise mechanics DLC. Ubisoft would just withdraw the game and bury it, only releasing it 10 years later. Microsoft would call bugs features and then silently abandon it. Sony would pretend they never even published it after 18 months.

 

Like, to be fair, the the problem is likely the publisher is at fault when this happens. The publisher is the one funding the developer, and likely made some insane demand for the game to be released on a specific date. When the developer is also the publisher (see also Nintendo), then the problem directly is the management, because Nintendo *never* has this problem. What does Nintendo do right that all these other publishers do wrong? Square-Enix doesn't have this problem. *surprise* maybe it's because Japanese companies value their employees, even when they have crunch times, where as American, Canadian and European publishers treat their employees as disposable.

 

[Jet_ski]

17 hours ago, RejZoR said:

I'm much less pissed because I don't mind waiting and I've decided to wait until they polish the game and then I'm gonna play it. I had no issues with their first big delay and I don't have the issue now. I rather wait another year than play it with all the insane bugs it had on release to a point you couldn't even play it properly. From the timeline, Patch 1.2 looks like it should land sometime in Marc or April 2021 so I'm just gonna wait for that and then buy it. Will probably have far better experience than people playing it since day 1.

That’s my thinking too. But I’ll probably wait longer until their next gen update. Because it really bothers me to play a GTA 3 looking game on my PS5 when I know what the console can do. If the textures weren’t as mushy I would go ahead.

 

For comparison, this game Pragmata is supposed to be out in 2023. But just look at the in-game trailer, it looks freakin insane for a $500 console that’s out today.

 

I really want to play Cyberpunk but I’m gonna wait. And if the next gen update isn’t as visually good looking as it should be, I’m just gonna watch the cutscenes on YouTube and move on.

[TOMPPIX]

CPR should not have released the game on the OG PS4 and Xbox one, the consoles are too weak to run it.

[PlayStation 2]

That video is more or less this in video form:

[Reytime]

Game should have been PC and next gen console only.

 

Sadly last gen is where the money is at currently.

[IkeaGnome]

I beat this game while I was home. Roughly 80 hours in it. I didn't have any crashing issues or major game breaking bugs. I did play it on two different PCs, one Intel/NVIDIA with RTX and DLSS off and one AMD. Neither had the issues that a lot of people were complaining about. The game is unpolished for sure, textures not completely loading etc, but more than playable.

[SteveGrabowski0]

On 1/14/2021 at 11:49 AM, Kisai said:

What does Nintendo do right that all these other publishers do wrong? Square-Enix doesn't have this problem. *surprise* maybe it's because Japanese companies value their employees, even when they have crunch times, where as American, Canadian and European publishers treat their employees as disposable.

IDK. As much as I love most things Japanese, the place sounds like hell if you're a salaryman. If I had to go to nomikai and kiss ass for career advancement after working overtime every day karoujisatsu might start to sound appealing. I suspect the better state of Japanese game launches has more to do with the publishers having pride in their work and not wanting to embarrass the company while in the US it's always about the quick dollar.

[514_AppleGuy]

Like any major release, I'll just wait a year and buy it for half-price with all the major glitches resolved. Saves money and provides a better game experience IMHO.

[poochyena]

On 1/14/2021 at 11:49 AM, Kisai said:

The publisher is the one funding the developer, and likely made some insane demand for the game to be released on a specific date

They spent 8 years on this game and had a huge amount of funding. Thats not an excuse.

On 1/14/2021 at 11:49 AM, Kisai said:

Japanese companies value their employees, even when they have crunch times, where as American, Canadian and European publishers treat their employees as disposable.

Japanese work cultures is just as bad if not far worse than the work culture anywhere else.
https://www.businessinsider.com/japan-is-facing-a-death-by-overwork-problem-2018-3
>In Japan, it's so common for employees to work themselves to death that there's a word for it: Karoshi.

[Kisai]

14 hours ago, SteveGrabowski0 said:

IDK. As much as I love most things Japanese, the place sounds like hell if you're a salaryman. If I had to go to nomikai and kiss ass for career advancement after working overtime every day karoujisatsu might start to sound appealing. I suspect the better state of Japanese game launches has more to do with the publishers having pride in their work and not wanting to embarrass the company while in the US it's always about the quick dollar.

I wasn't saying Japanese work life is better, just the culture has a very different attitude to job permanence and performance. What is "crunch time" in North America is basically just this generations version of "unpaid intern", disposable people. Japan has health care. The US does not. Japan has job security. US/CA/EU jobs do not.

 

Do Japanese people work or drink themselves to death? Yes, so do Americans.

 

The outcome however is drastically different. Japanese publishers would rather not release broken garbage. They however will release games and merchandise that are designed to appeal to certain demographic of Japan. American customers however tend to not get these things because they don't get localized, which means that they leave money on the table, every time they don't release a game outside Japan. 

 

Games with an American (English) audience target however gets wide exposure, and thus all the entitled goofballs out out of the woodwork complaining the game didn't appeal to them enough. You can't narrow a game demographic for the english audience, because you reduce sales, and thus you have a situation where you can't please enough people. Had CDPR released CP2077 but not on the PS4, and didn't hype it up as much as they did, they likely wouldn't be in the situation they are now.

 

[D13H4RD]

Also, they're doing this not out of the kindness of their hearts. They're doing this because they know they royally fucked up the whole thing and their shareholders plus even their partners are royally unhappy with the outcome. For such an overhyped title to go down like this, you really have little choice but to fix the game and do as much damage control as you can.

 

Which sounds doable unless you're Adam Badowski and your definition of "damage control" is mobilizing a whole bunch of CDPR fanboys to defend the game as much as possible.

[ravenshrike]

On 1/17/2021 at 10:56 AM, Voluspa said:

I beat this game while I was home. Roughly 80 hours in it. I didn't have any crashing issues or major game breaking bugs. I did play it on two different PCs, one Intel/NVIDIA with RTX and DLSS off and one AMD. Neither had the issues that a lot of people were complaining about. The game is unpolished for sure, textures not completely loading etc, but more than playable.

PC is fine, Apart from crashing every 4-6 hours of play PS4 Pro is fine. The XBOneX is apparently even less of an issue than the PS4 Pro. The big issue is apparently the PS4 base model, but I know someone playing it on that and while the crashing is worse because of the memory systems on the PS4, it's still not a big deal. Course, his PS4 is relatively new and early model PS4s might be having more issues, especially if dust choked.

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

Just in time
 

 

[Zodiark1593]

On 1/14/2021 at 5:47 AM, Doobeedoo said:

Yeah last gen is a complete mess, but oh wow the game shouldn't have been even targeted for them though. The current gens are out and would've been way better if on launch it was ready for them. Then again, I still see this primarily a PC game though. But they will fix it eventually. I mean in general improve the game aspects that may lack, really this game has a lot of potential to expand on it.

Probably should have waited a year, iron out the bugs and have the new consoles achieve better market penetration, then go for release. The game obviously wasn’t ready even on PC, and the console hardware hadn’t reached enough players yet (supply issues and scalping) to make for a successful day-1 launch. 

[Doobeedoo]

56 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Probably should have waited a year, iron out the bugs and have the new consoles achieve better market penetration, then go for release. The game obviously wasn’t ready even on PC, and the console hardware hadn’t reached enough players yet (supply issues and scalping) to make for a successful day-1 launch. 

Yeah a lot of things happening. Really just how many versions of the game they had to focus at the same time... ugh. The new consoles I take it couldn't wait any longer, as in to wait for new games for them, they had to get them out for other reasons. Then again I'm happy with it on PC I've played much buggier games on release that are AAA series.

[The1Dickens]

1 hour ago, Zodiark1593 said:

and the console hardware hadn’t reached enough players yet (supply issues and scalping)

 

6 minutes ago, Doobeedoo said:

The new consoles I take it couldn't wait any longer, as in to wait for new games for them, they had to get them out for other reasons.

Just going to point out: PS5/Xbox Series S/X versions are not out yet. They launch later this year, according to the timeline.