Cyberpunk 2077 Dev Apologises For Poor Last-Gen Performance, Offers Refunds

Thats great! To have that option so yeah.
I will wait a couple months.

The reason game was delayed last time was due to base consoles. I have XSX but the game should have been delayed until 2021 when ready for XSX and PS5 as back compat versions are so inferior to PC regardless of consoles being $499 the experience and visuals are not what I had expected or hoped for. I have not played since launch day and won't until patched and upto snuff but in CDPR I trust to get it right.

@The-Chosen-one, there is nothig great about all this CDPR mess. They cheated and lied for so long now about the game and assured that will run just fine on Ps4&Xone. Enough is enough.

I mean it’s nice that they’re offering refunds and some sort of apology but that doesn’t make up for them actively hiding the base versions before launch and lying about them knowing they are an absolute ***** show.

CDPR have been deceitful, for a Dev that puts so much emphasis on being consumer friendly, this has been the complete opposite.

This is a good move that shouldn't be necessary.

The last delay clearly cited the game wasn't working well on old hardware but was running on new gen and PC. Anyone following the game though it's many delays should have been keenly aware this was going to be a thing.

This isn't to say CD Red is innocent (bugs aside) they released versions of a game they knew wasn't going to run well.

The thing is much like the Duke Nukem Forever thing, a different approach to communication might have side stepped a lot of this. Something like calling the X1/PS4s versions something different, making the next gen version the product people are buying and the current gen one is just a free early access thing to hold you over till you get a new gen console.

I’ve got so many games to get through at the moment anyway that I’m holding off purchasing 2077 until later into next year. I’m hopeful by then, with all the patches & updates, it will sing on my Series X.

This wasn't even on my radar until a few weeks ago, so I was not aware of the delays prior to release. After reading the comments about poor performance on older consoles, I was wary (I have an X1X). This response (to me) seems like they are trying to put right the issues of a 'less than great' release with patches or refunds, which seems fair. Anyone remember the piss-poor effort by Ubisoft a few years ago with Assassins Creed which resulted in a choice of free game? I stupidly got the ***** driving game, which was so crap I don't even remember the title.

I can totally understand why folks are annoyed at paying £50 on release day for a buggy release. It's one of my peevs with new games. Test the bloody thing properly before releasing! I'll probably watch out for the patch(es) and see if this makes the game more playable as I'm not looking to buy an XSX at the moment.

No surprise as the game is broken and buggy to hell, one of the worst shaped games on release this gen

Its a next gen game trying to release on 7+yr old hardware that even a lot of PC builds will struggle to run at 60fps. I know these base consoles are targeting 30fps, but if a 'decent' CPU (and yes, CPU is important too) can't run the game at 60fps on PC, how do you think the weak CPU's in these OLD consoles will cope?

DF did a test with a GTX3090 at 540p (to ensure it was NOT the GPU bottlenecking) and was not able to get 60fps+ in a lot of areas on a Ryzen 3600. Far Cry 3 struggled on PS3/360 and had perhaps worse performance and a lot of games didn't run consistently on that generation at all but people seem to forget that. They were running 'under' 720p too but that's not surprising for hardware that is really under-powered by the time these games were releasing. Games like Goldeneye and Perfect Dark on the N64 ran really badly by modern standards and yet still are very highly regarded.

The rise of youtube and analysis channels (like Digital Foundry) has drawn attention to issues in modern games and made people aware of any performance issues when they 'happily' played games that had worse performance metrics.

Maybe CDPR should have just scrapped PS4/XB1 versions because the hardware is just not up to the task - but then they would have been slated for that too after saying it would release on these platforms.

Picked it up release day from base.com. Not gonna touch it until it's patched up. I can wait. Have tons of stuff to play anyway.

@BAMozzy pretty much the perfect comment, games like Perfect Dark would be described as shocking if these type of analysis existed back then, yet it was very highly regarded at the time. I could probably name a hundred 3d games from the time as well that had "poor" performance but everyone loved playing.

Then you have the PS3 and 360 generation, just go back and play most of those games and remember Skyrim on PS3 in particular? It was far worse than how this game plays and even this gen there are lots of examples of games targeting 60fps that are never even close on the base machines such as the Resident Evil games or COD on One S, isn't Sekiro a 60fps game that hovers around 30 to 40fps on the Pro consoles? I found Borderlands 3 unplayable for example on PS4 Pro as neither mode got anywhere near its framerate target

I started this on the Xbox One X and whilst admittedly thats probably the best case scenario for this game on current gen, it was perfectly fine to play, its certainly much more consistent on my Series S and I'll be continuing to enjoy myself.

Let's face it if you're still playing on the base PS4 or One S then presumably you're not that bothered about having the best performance anyway, I look at this game on those machines as I'd look at Doom ported to the Switch

And because of this, it’s why lots of people have exactly the same fears and worries over Halo Infinite... last gen consoles holding it back and will run the game like crap....

I am waiting to play it until after the XSX patch.

But the game should’ve never released in this condition. It’s completely ridiculous.

They knew full well about the state of the game otherwise they would of let out review copies of the console versions at the same time as the Windows version

Thank goodness I have an X1X to hold me over until I can get an XSX.

It sounds like the game really shouldn't have been released until February.

Unfortunately, quite a few games already pushed release dates back as to not compete with Cyberpunk, that I am sure CDPR would have been crapped on twice. One for delaying - AGAIN and second for "forcing" other developers to change their release plans - AGAIN.

CDPR was damned if they did, damned if they didn't in this scenario.

This is one instance where ambition came back to bite the developer in the butt. I am sure, much like The Witcher 3 - which also released in a very unsatisfactory state, Cyberpunk 2077 will be very high-regarded as time passes.

I am certainly enjoying the game so far!

@Kefka2589 yeah definitely agree with that and it’s a shame as CDPR really have built up a great pro consumer reputation over the years, then in one fell swoop it’s pretty much all gone.

This apology strikes me as hollow and empty. ‘We should have spent more time making it feel and play better’. That doesn’t matter now they released it and knew the state it was in and they’re going to have to deal with the backlash they rightly deserve.

Cyberpunk _{to be completed by} 2077

@Kefka2589 I imagine they were between a rock in a hard place. The way I'm imagining their development going is that they did 100% of development and testing on PC all these years and only in the past year decided to start porting the PC game to consoles, with minimal console experience overall, and only then realized they're totally hosed, the game doesn't actually fit. Heck, their statement above more or less says as much. After that it was delays and scrambles to make the port "fit" in a rush.

But I imagine, financially, they needed to release something and make back some ROI. They had a problem. They knew most of their sales were going to come from consoles the game doesn't work on while they spent all their time tinkering on a minority platform of PC. They couldn't afford to delay. And they didn't have a product to sell.

At some point, someone made the decision to just fake it 'till they make it. Pretend they're launching, claim the cash prize, ship the broken product, hide that it's broken until it's in consumer hands...and then deal with the fallout _{seventy six it} as it may be afterward. Reputation damage, stock damage, partner damage, must have all been deemed acceptable versus not shipping product this year. Which says how bad things must have been financially prior.

I used to laugh at the meme of "Microsoft should buy CDPR!" - but honestly, after this, that's probably a realistic possibility. If MS would even want them, and they probably don't. Sure the game already made up all losses by selling a broken product. They're back in the black overnight. But they're also known liars now, and their next game will struggle to sell.

Sony can't afford to buy them, Microsoft probably doesn't want/need them. Google could buy them....Stadia seems like the primary platform for the game. And selling smoke, mirrors, lies, and misdirection is a common business interest.

@carlos82 Doom on Switch may be a blurry mess, but it' runs rock solid stable fps and doesn't crash. That says something here.

Plus, if it isn't blurry, it isn't really Doom

That's great news

Have to consider how complicit other parties where in keeping this quiet about the performance of the game on OG consoles.

Xbox partnered with CDPR and said nothing, though continued to promote the product, surely they knew?

Will be interesting to see how refunds are handled as Sony is already rejecting most based on “policy”.

Honestly the last gen performance is great... if you got an Xbox One X. That said I bet the game is pretty rough on a launch-spec Xbox or a One S. I didn't even bother downloading it on my older Xbox.

@Meehanuk yeah good point they didn’t even realise with Halo 😂

I think they do but I guess “fans” have different expectations than developers. In the case of CDPR, they knew fully how bad it was, but they got 8 million sales before it even released so why would you ruin that revenue stream?

@Meehanuk
I think MS knew Halo wasn't looking amazing, but they didn't want to have to delay it when they didn't have any other launch games, but I'm glad they had the balls to do so when you now look at the mess of Cyberpunk 2077. This is another game that need another 6-12 months in the oven.

@HansCastorp
Thats true, if it happened to me i would be pissed, so yeah.