We're kicking off 2025 with some fresh Xbox controversy.
One of last year's biggest hits and most-awarded action games Black Myth: Wukong is still exclusively not on Xbox, and increasingly it seems to be for incidental reasons, rather than platform exclusivity.
Black Myth: Wukong is the debut title from Game Science, whose breakout hit went on to sell millions of copies and immediately solidified the studio as a top-flight player in the genre. The game is presently available on Windows PCs and PlayStation 5, and was originally announced for Xbox Series X|S, until it was revealed that the Xbox version is essentially on indefinite hiatus.
Previously, Microsoft suggested to us that Black Myth: Wukong was skipping Xbox due to some form of timed exclusivity deal in PlayStation, offering the following comments unprompted to Windows Central, as well as major outlets like Forbes and IGN. I also conferred with my own sources, who confirmed that Microsoft is all up internally operating under the idea that Black Myth: Wukong took some form of timed exclusivity deal with PlayStation — for engineering support, or something along those lines. The game has received no special marketing treatment from PlayStation to that end, and neither side has confirmed or debunked whether some form of exclusivity deal was or is in place.
Xbox CEO Phil Spencer recently noted to journalist Stephen Totilo in an interview that he knew when Black Myth: Wukong will launch on Xbox, but he can't yet say, implying again that there's some information on Microsoft's side about the exclusivity window. That narrative was upended this past week, as Black Myth: Wukong's game director Feng Ji said on Weibo that the Xbox Series S's 10GB RAM allocation remains a major hurdle, and would take "years" of work and optimization experience to actualize.
We've reached out to Game Science and Microsoft to comment.
Will Xbox Series X|S ever get Black Myth Wukong?
It would seem that even if there was at some point a period of timed exclusivity, the Xbox Series S parity clause is preventing the game from arriving on Microsoft's platform. Microsoft requires developers to launch games on both Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S in order to ship. The fact the Xbox Series S has RAM disparity with the PS5 and Xbox Series X has been blamed by various developers over the years for delays on Microsoft's platform. Famously, Baldur's Gate 3 was delayed on Xbox Series X|S until Microsoft allowed Larian to ship without couch co-op on the S version of the game.
Games that have been developed with the Xbox Series S limitations in mind don't always hit the same snags. STALKER 2 developer GSC Game World recently discussed how the Xbox Series S helped them optimize the game for more systems. However, it's also true that GSC is a well-established developer and has a large amount of backing from Microsoft. Game Science put out a AAA game, but is still a new developer. You would think or even hope that Microsoft would be able or willing to offer the team engineering support to bring one of last year's biggest hits to the platform. It's ultimately Xbox customers who lose out when situations like this arise.
If I had to guess, and in my humble opinion, the lack of Black Myth: Wukong on Xbox is likely the result of "Microsoft Gaming" spreading itself too thin. Between its efforts to take on Steam on PC, integrate Activision-Blizzard's systems with Xbox, develop Xbox Cloud Gaming across multiple fronts, the investment strategy for Xbox Series X|S consoles seems well and truly on the back foot right now. Although, it's also true that Microsoft has mountains of first-party Unreal Engine-based games that likely need optimization support of their own. Perhaps the solution would be to allow smaller developers to ship on Xbox Series X, with the S version being delivered via cloud servers. I'm not sure whether Microsoft is ready to cross that Rubicon yet.
In another era, I suspect Xbox would have been all over getting Black Myth: Wukong onto Xbox consoles if the issue was something as simple as optimization. But as we head into 2025, the investment in third-party engineering support for console games seems to be a generally lower priority.
