“Unraveling the Mystery: Why Sunless Fable: Wukong’s Xbox Delays Stem from Console Memory Challenges”
Even with Microsoft asserting that “platform restrictions” weren’t a guidance.
Black Myth: Wukong‘s director has expressed a viewpoint that contradicts Microsoft, stating that the game’s delay on Xbox is due to the Series S’s memory limitations. This is something the Xbox creator has previously refuted.
In a post on the Chinese social media site Weibo, Black Myth: Wukong producer and Sport Science CEO Feng Ji stated that the Xbox Series S’s memory is the reason for the game’s delay on Microsoft’s consoles. Commenting on Black Myth: Wukong’s absence on Xbox during an otherwise successful year for the studio (which recently earned multiple awards at the Steam Awards), the director noted:
“However, that 10G shared memory, I can’t fully utilize it without a few years of optimization experience” (translated via ResetEra).
Back in September of last year, however, Microsoft declared that the delay of Black Myth: Wukong’s Xbox release was not due to “platform restrictions”. Additionally, there were rumors that the Black Myth: Wukong team had entered into a secret exclusivity deal with PlayStation.
“As we have stated before, we are excited about the launch of Black Myth Wukong on Xbox Series X/S and are collaborating with Game Science to bring the game to our platforms,” Microsoft stated at that time. “We would prefer not to comment on the agreements made by our partners with other platform holders, but we can confirm that the delay is not due to Xbox platform limitations raised to us.”
Eurogamer has reached out to both Xbox and Black Myth: Wukong developer Sport Science for clarification regarding the game’s Xbox delay.
Black Myth: Wukong broke records upon its launch by becoming the most popular single-player game by peak concurrent users in Steam history and establishing itself as the most-viewed game on Chinese live-streaming platforms on its first day of release.
It was later nominated for Game of the Year at the 2024 Game Awards, but ultimately lost to the PlayStation platformer Astro Bot.