Poor Performance of Cyberpunk 2077 on Xbox One X and PS4 Might Entirely be CDPR’s Fault

The fiasco around Cyberpunk 2077 and previous-gen consoles has reached an all-time high. Players have already started demanding refunds from Microsoft and Sony. While the manufacturers of the PS4 and Xbox One X have obliged to fulfill a few requests, they cannot refund all purchases.

Although a lot of players have resorted to blaming Microsoft and Sony, the blame falls on someone else.

Rami Ismail, an industry analyst, broke the situation down in a Twitter thread recently. He explained how CD Projekt RED is at fault for the situation with Cyberpunk 2077 and previous-gen consoles. Therefore, to ensure a just refund process, CDPR will have to coordinate with Sony and Microsoft and bear the complete burden.

He explained the concept behind the certification of games for consoles. According to him, “Sony and Microsoft are -not- responsible for the state of Cyberpunk 2077 on PS4 and Xbox.”

The idea behind this is that there are bare minimum criteria for games to obtain certification for consoles. Post this, anything that goes wrong is the publisher’s fault.

Three delays were not enough to optimize Cyberpunk 2077 for PS4 and Xbox One X

CD Projekt RED had to delay the launch of the game at three different instances. Justifying their final launch delay in November, the publishers had said that they were polishing the game. Since CDPR had planned to release the game for all the platforms together, it had demanded extra time. However, after the launch, it looks like the developers focused only on the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S while ignoring the previous-gen consoles.

Rami explains that when a game applies for certification, the publishers have to ensure that it does not brick the consoles or disable critical functionality. Therefore, whether a game is ‘good’ or not is not really their burden.

When publishers send in their titles for certification, even if it has bugs or glitches, they usually ignore them. Instead, they focus on things like, “don’t render critical stuff off-screen”, “display warnings if your internet connection is lost”, “showcase the correct button labels”, “ensure unplugging & plugging back in your controller doesn’t crash the game”. 

Generally, when new-gen consoles launch, it is hard to optimize games for previous-gen consoles. However, CDPR may have gotten it all wrong with Cyberpunk 2077 on PS4 and Xbox One X. Moreover, while Sony and Microsoft tried to provide refunds to players, the system is clearly broken.

Due to lack of clarity and communication by CDPR, players have not only had a bad experience playing the game but also through the refund process. Hopefully, the studio comes to recognize its mistake and makes up for it. Till then, at least players can get clarity on who is responsible for their horrible experience.