Jyamma Games CEO blasts Xbox amidst indefinite delay for 'Enotria: The Last Song,' Microsoft responds (Update)

What you need to know

• Enotria: The Last Song is an upcoming PC and PS5 (and formerly Xbox Series X|S) soulslike based on Italian folklore. 
• The game has already been delayed once on Xbox previously, but now, it is delayed on Xbox "indefinitely." 
• In comments on the developers' Discord, Jyamma Games CEO blamed Microsoft for the delay, stating that Xbox hasn't responded to their queries for over two months. 
• UPDATE (September 4, 2024): A new report suggests that Microsoft has been in contact with Jyamma Games to apologize. 
• UPDATE (September 4, 2024): Jyamma Games has announced that it has made contact with Phil Spencer and Microsoft. Both Jyamma Games and Microsoft are now working closely to bring Enotria: The Last Song to Xbox consoles.
• UPDATE (September 5, 2024): Microsoft has issued the following response: "We’ve connected with Jyamma Games and got great feedback that we will use to improve our processes. We look forward to working with them to bring Enotria: The Last Song to Xbox." 

Original article: 

It's Monday, so that means another game must be skipping Xbox. 

Microsoft hasn't had much luck lately controlling the narrative surrounding its console platform. Microsoft revealed that Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is coming to PlayStation 5, as part of a hyped up "one more thing" announcement at Gamescom 2024. The snafu fanned flames behind the idea that Microsoft is purposefully undermining its Xbox Series X|S platform, coupled with its "no console needed" marketing campaign for Xbox Cloud Gaming on Amazon Fire TV sticks. Additionally, wildly successful action Black Myth Wukong grabbed an indefinite delay on Xbox, amidst rumors that Xbox's competitor PlayStation sniped Black Myth Wukong into some kind of exclusivity deal. This is hot on the tail of various other Xbox games going over to PlayStation, including Sea of Thieves, while big publishers like Capcom skip over Xbox for remastered classic fighting games, as well as Monster Hunter Stories 1 and 2. 

And now, another game just announced it is skipping Xbox in a pretty spectacular way. 

Enotria: The Last Song is an upcoming soulslike heavily inspired by Italian and European folklore. The game is set to launch on September 19, 2024 for Xbox Series X|S, PC, and PlayStation 5. Or at least, it was. The game is now exclusively not coming to Xbox Series X|S, per a statement on the game's website. 

"Unfortunately, at this time, we have to announce an indefinite delay of the Xbox version. We understand how disappointing this news is to the Xbox community. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts and the hard work of our dedicated team, we’ve encountered challenges that have delayed our release on the Xbox platform. We want to emphasize that this is not a decision we’ve made lightly.

We apologize for any disappointment this may cause and sincerely thank you for your understanding and patience. As a self-published indie studio, your support means everything to us, and we are dedicated to bringing Enotria to as many players as possible."

Immediately, the internet began to speculate that the Xbox Series S is the problem. Last year, Baldur's Gate 3 notoriously skipped over the Xbox Series X|S platform, publicly blaming the Xbox Series S and Microsoft's feature parity clauses for the delay. Microsoft eventually relented on the parity policy for the game's local co-op capabilities. The less-powerful, but more affordable Xbox Series S has often been the topic of controversy with regards to optimizing for current-gen systems. However, the developers seemed to suggest that the Xbox Series S was, in fact, not to blame on their Discord community server. Instead, they blamed Microsoft itself. 

A community manager known as Creatura said "We are calm," in response to fan questions and speculation, "I think this person is coming up with their own conclusions based on... nothing. Cause we never mentioned Series S and we are not paid by Sony."

Jyamma Games CEO Jacky Greco had some stern words to share on the matter. "You can ask Xbox why they haven't answered us for 2 months. Obviously they don't care about Enotria and they don't care about you. [...] The context is open a store page and submission [sic], we've Xbox Series X|S version ready, but we can't proceed with submission and release, I spent a lot of money for porting and they decided to ignore us."

It's not a great look for Xbox, and it's also not the first time we've heard criticism of Microsoft's certification processes for games and apps alike.

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One step forward, two steps back

Microsoft has undoubtedly worked hard to improve the general support of Xbox from smaller developers over the years. Xbox Game Pass has functioned as a great vehicle to support developers with cash flow, resulting in a variety of success stories for games of all shapes and sizes. Microsoft has also had a lot of success bringing games with long periods of competitor exclusivity to Xbox, including franchises like Yakuza, Dragon Quest, Persona, and even MLB: The Show. Just today, we covered how the cosy Atelier franchise is coming to Xbox for the first time ever. However, with all the other drama revolving around Xbox right now, every mis-step seems amplified.

Enotria's developers certainly seem frustrated with Microsoft's processes, and they wouldn't be the first developer to call out Xbox's certification policies for games. For example, I heard Microsoft's certification processes were one of the main reasons the popular MMORPG Final Fantasy 14 skipped Xbox for so long, purely on the basis of the fact the game's development pipeline couldn't accommodate it.

Build certification is designed to ensure a minimum level of quality hitting the platform for users, so that games launch in a relatively polished, workable state for the purposes of selling. However, if what Jyamma Games' CEO is saying is accurate, it sounds as though simply getting communications with the ID@Xbox program is difficult right now, and it wouldn't be the first time I've heard such a tale personally.

We've reached out to Microsoft to comment, and we're sure that after the noise being made, Microsoft will probably be reaching out to Jyamma Games as well. At the end of the day, it's Xbox customers and players that are potentially missing out on what could be a great game. 

Enotria: The Last Song is launching on PS5 and PC on September 19, 2024, with an Xbox Series X|S version indefinitely delayed as of writing. Be sure to wishlist the game on Steam here.