Confusion remains over Black Myth: Wukong's Xbox delay, as developer blames console memory
Despite Microsoft insisting "platform limitations" weren't an issue.
Black Myth: Wukong's director has appeared to contradict Microsoft, stating the game's Xbox delay is due to the Series S's memory limitations. This is something that the Xbox maker has previously denied.
Writing on Chinese social media platform Weibo, Black Myth: Wukong producer and Game Science CEO Feng Ji said the Xbox Series S's memory is the reason behind the game's delay on Microsoft's consoles. Lamenting Black Myth: Wukong's absence on Xbox in an otherwise good year for the studio (it recently scooped up a number of awards at the Steam Awards), the director wrote:
"But that 10G shared memory, I can't really get it without a few years of optimisation experience" (translated on ResetEra).
In September of last year however, Microsoft said the delay to the game's Xbox release of Black Myth: Wukong was not due to "platform limitations". At this time, there was also chatter that the Black Myth: Wukong team had entered into an undisclosed exclusivity deal with PlayStation.
"As we have said before, we're excited for the launch of Black Myth Wukong on Xbox Series X/S and are working with Game Science to bring the game to our platforms," Microsoft said at the time. "We'd prefer not to comment on the deals made by our partners with other platform holders but we can confirm that the delay is not due to Xbox platform limitations that have been raised to us."
Eurogamer has reached out to both Xbox and Black Myth: Wukong developer Game Science for clarification on the game's Xbox delay.
Black Myth: Wukong broke records on its debut 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 went on to be nominated for Game of the Year at the 2024 Game Awards, however it ultimately lost out to PlayStation platformer Astro Bot. Following this, Game Science's CEO posted a lengthy statement regarding the action game's apparent snub, stating he felt like he "came all the way here for nothing!"