There have been many “themes” and “recurring issues” around Microsoft and the Xbox brand over the last several years. In fact, while the Xbox Series X/S and the PS5 are around the same age, just turning four years old, they have vastly different results in their current console cycles. One of the biggest issues that the Xbox Series X/S is that it can’t seem to get some of the biggest games around in a “good timeframe,” and that leads many to wonder if developers have been avoiding it. Phil Spencer has tried to dissuade that feeling around one particular game that Xbox missed out on at launch.
That title is Black Myth Wukong. Despite it not being the highest-rated game of the year or one of the most hyped titles of 2024, the game has done incredibly on the sales front. It has sold over 20 million units across PlayStation and PC, which is a big boon for those platforms…but it hasn’t come out on Xbox yet. Sure, it’s been rated for the system, but that doesn’t mean as much as you think, as sometimes ratings can come out almost a year before release!
As noted by one Reddit post, after translating it from Spanish, Phil Spencer was doing an interview about the game and noted that he “knew” when it would arrive on Xbox. When asked when that was, his response was:
“I can’t say it.”
You can take this one of several ways, not the least of which is that it’s not coming out in 2024, or that he honestly doesn’t know, and that he’s lying just to make it seem like it is close. While that might seem like a harsh judgment to render, it is something that Phil has used in the past to try and make the Xbox brand seem stronger than it actually was. Including at one point stating that key Xbox exclusives wouldn’t go multiplatform…and then later in the year, they went multiplatform. Surprise!
No matter how you look at it, missing the launch window for this title doesn’t show Microsoft in the best light, as this isn’t the first time that the company has missed out on a huge title at launch. Does anyone remember what happened with Larian Studios? Exactly. Xbox didn’t even want to put them on the Game Pass, which Larian was fine with, and then they missed out on the launch of the eventual Game of the Year! Not to mention, Larian was forced to make adjustments for both versions of the Xbox, which led to even more issues.
Wukong’s title was said to have similar problems, which is another black eye to Xbox.
