Cyberpunk 2077’s disastrous PlayStation 4 launch is well documented, and Sony still sounds bitter about it. The game was ultimately removed from the PlayStation Store, where it’s remained absent for over two months now. The platform holder was also forced to completely alter its refund policy specifically for the sci-fi blockbuster. Needless to say, PlayStation boss Jim Ryan is p*ssed.
As part of an interview with GQ, the outspoken executive explained that his company is willing to delay software that isn’t up to scratch – unlike others. “We’re feeling pretty good about Returnal, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, and Horizon Forbidden West [releasing this year],” he said. “And, you know, there are two approaches to this: you can either hold the date and put out the game irrespective of quality or you can ship it when it’s right.
Then comes the shade: “We have always taken the latter approach. There have been some fairly high-profile instances of publishers trying the former approach. It never works at the best of times. But I think in this world, where creative people are working remotely, you’ve just got to respect the fact that that development needs to take what it needs to take and to get the games right.”
Ouch.
[source gq-magazine.co.uk]
Comments 52
I mean I adore the game and thankfully have a Series X to play it on where I've logged about 80 hours into my Street Kid playthrough with ZERO crashes. Regardless of the tech issues the writing/story were excellent and I actually cried a few times. Just started a second run, so the world they did create despite flawed has me addicted to it.
Hopefully the Playstation versions will eventually find greater stability.
To be fair when I read high profile and publishers I didn't think CDPR at first. Ubisoft, square enix and Bethesda would the first publishers with the release now and fix later mentality
I don’t think he sounds bitter, p*ssed or harsh to be honest. Unless there’s more to the interview than what’s been quoted here.
True, the cyberpunk viasco is so dumb, the game will be way better if cdp delayed it for at least 6 months, it's not like cdp really needed that preorder money.
Sony's just mad CD Project Red exposed their lack of a good refund policie. I'm glad i choose to pre-order and then cancelled the pre-order on Xbox 1. Though i wonder if now is a good time to buy this game again.
Doesn't sound particularly bitter to me. It's an accurate assessment of the situation. Is anyone seriously going to argue that Cyberpunk WASN'T shipped out before it was ready?
Sony just ether a nas vs jay z diss track on cd project red.sneaky sony haha😲😄.word up son
Ι don't see any "shade". He makes a valid point with which most of us would agree. That's all.
Given the CDPR boss liking all the negative comments about Sony when they removed Cyberpunk from the store, and given the fact the game still isn't back on PSN, I wonder how this will impact future CDPR releases on Playstation. I'm not impressed by CDPR management, and i wonder if they will go for M$ exclusivity
I still can't believe I live in a World where CD-who must not be named failed so spectacularly
100% agree. There’re enough games to play time a thousand . Take your time and make that game the best it can be. Hopefully Sony will learn from this and apply more pressure in the future for developers to not release broken game, and to respect their teams and not force crunch to meet arbitrary deadlines.
Total side note but I really wish Push Square would make quotes easier to read like on your sister sites. Having them be separated from the text in italic would make browsing the site so much easier.
I wouldn’t say they sound bitter, just realistic. This sort of thing has happened before, just not to this scale with social media and stuff.
Yeah, that doesn't sound bitter. Now, if he had said CDPR can go **** themselves, then that definitely could be classified as bitter.
I usually don't like it when Jim Ryan does interviews, but I didn't read anything too eyebrow-raising from the interviews released today. The dig at CDPR made me laugh out loud.
CDPR made a mistake releasing what has turned out to be a fantastic game before it was done. Sony has made a mistake for years by taking an adversarial approach to their refund policies and showing contempt for their customers. Cyberpunk is getting fixed. Will Sony's refund policy get fixed? In the long run, I think it's good that a bad refund policy was brought to light, even if it wasn't under the best of circumstances.
Hyperbole 101.
@Jayslow Honestly CDPR approached Witcher 3 the same way. It had some pretty bad bugs at launch. It took them a couple of months to iron everything out. Plus they ended up overhauling the the controls for Geralt and Roach, and changed up how the menus worked post-launch.
Sure, they aren't on the level of the other developers you mentioned, but they are definitely somewhat guilty of the same mentality.
@cherryghost41 oh no arguing that. I was mainly talking about volume. The publishers I mentioned do have multiple games a year with these issues. So if anything he was throwing shade at the entire AAA industry where this has unfortunately become a norm
I wouldn't say bitter. More wanting some kind of quality control.
Finally. Good on em.
It sounds more like he's talking about their strategy and less like he's mad at CDPR
To be fair Cyberpunk was just the biggest launch mess it certainly wasn't the only one!
I really enjoyed the game and experienced very few glitches (PS5) and have the platinum so I would recommend it to anyone who is interested once we get a full fat PS5 version.
As with GT 7 today, we are happy to wait if the game is fully fledged when it is finally released and not half baked.
@kyleforrester87
You're right, I read the whole interview. He was simply explaining about Returnal being pushed back, it felt quite reserved to me considering what he could have said.
I take it this policy was adopted after the launch of Days Gone? Because I saw plenty of "buggy mess" headlines from that one came out. Ultimately it got fixed to a good state (I didn't play it until way way later, and enjoyed it) but needless to say: that game could had used some of this "ship it when it’s right" mantra.
It might even be another high profile IP for Sony had it launched in a better state.
„ A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad.“ Jim Ryan
Doesn’t sound bitter at all.
Sony should just put some of their vastly superior studios on making CDPR game types and blow them out the water. Disgusting and childish company who made a game with 2008 mechanics, riddled with bugs on all systems, and refused to take responsibility.
I’m generally in the anti Sony camp when it comes to any type of banning or censorship, I just hate their holier than thou attitude, but in this instance I can only agree with Sony. The game wasn’t suitable for release.
Sounds like a pretty standard opinion to me. Where was there any emotion inflected in his words? How did he come off as p***ed? Why can't that word be spelled out?
I'm agreeing with the sentiments in the comments so far. It sounds like a pretty fair statement. He's just being direct and, arguably, a little blunt. Sony and CDPR would definitely have had a long chat before the game was pulled. Neither one of them wants to burn that bridge. They make too much money off of each other.
This will need to be retracted as soon as Sony releases and absolutely buggy and unready game. Did Days Gone meet this requirement when it was first released?
I still have the game installed since December but waiting for more updates to make it stable before i start the game.
Skyrim on PS3 was a mess at the start but didn't get the same treatment as Cyberpunk????
@jmac1686 sounds like you were one of the lucky few lol my series X crashed every hour or so so I game shared my buddy on PS5 same thing but it was a fun and great experience good characters etc I even got the platinum trophy. Just sucks it was to an extent ruined by the state of the game
I think we should remember Sony certified the game to be on the store because they believed cdpr could crunch it good. Maybe they should insist games work to a standard before they certify a game.
@SZRT_CIC_Ice - that's half the site's modus operandi - hyperbolise something to generate clicks.. i'm not sure we need 7 articles on a single interview either.
and these quotes were already mentioned in a prior article. the sentiments regarding delaying games til they're ready have been echoed in many other sources, not just by jim ryan. i'd imagine he's not as bitter as all the gamers who feel they've got badly burned by the game.
@thefourfoldroot which point in their various apologies did they fail to take responsibility?
@Total_Weirdo we are talking a bout new games, not PS3 games released in 2011 (a decade ago)....
@captainsandman Comparing Days Gone launch to Cyberpunck 2077 as if they were the same....reaching much? Cyberpunck 2077 launch was a ***** show.
Bravo. CD(bad)PR tried to push Sony under a bus, Jim sent a double decker back.
I'm starting to think this game may never return to PS Store.
I doubt CDPR will ever have the balls to sell DLC for it either.
This game seems to have developed into a Black Eye on the entire industry.
@TrueAssassin86x Some people will go on their knees regardless if the get ripped off and i thought i was a fanboy. 🤪
@rpg2000 I don't think they were the same and I was naming Days Gone because I knew there were a few issues at launch. I don't think any of them were game breaking but that was the closest Sony launch I could think of that might have been better off waiting a few months. If you read my comment I was more asking if Day's Gone was buggy enough at release to go against what Ryan was saying. I didn't play it until the PS5 so I am unsure of it's release state.
@Robinsad
My bad if they refunded everyone and decided to not sell the game any more until it was in an acceptable state. Must have missed that
Taking responsibility does not mean saying sorry then continuing to do the exact same thing.
@Mpquikster It will come back, it'd be foolish to think either Sony or CDPR would give up on its return. I for one am happy it's not back yet, AAA games by their nature are more complicated and harder to get right but many publishers throw their weight around and expect people to pay full price for an early access at best. Publishers will do this as long as it's profitable to do so, if Sony pulled it for only a month they would do it again. By pulling it for a longer period of time it costs CDPR more, and makes it less likely their management will take this risk again. It's better for consumers, for developers, and the managers will still be rich even if a little less so. I got lots of hate for saying it would need more than a couple months of patches. But February has come and gone and the game is still a mess, contrary to CDPR's claims.
@TrueAssassin86x I'm glad this pressured Sony to improve its refund policy. That said I've heard the game is still a mess. Performance is better and some bugs have been fixed, but it's still far from what it should have launched as. Xbox One in particular has not seen as much performance improvements. CDPR will need to improve the framerate, asset loading, and fix many bugs. Digital Foundry had a good performance analysis video on the 1.1 patch and I doubt 1.2 will fix everything either. At GDC 2019 Insomniac said they spent months optimizing Spider Man's asset loading on base PS4, clearly CDPR is only starting what will take them several months as well.
@Ralizah Yeah, but would you have selected the article if it didn't have a clickbait title?
The only bitter person in the entire article is you Sammy Barker. You even called it "Cyberjunk" in subheading. I don't have any feeling that Jim Ryan was p*ssed after reading what he said. I am starting to wonder whether you are paid to write bad stuff about cyberpunk or you are simply juvenile.
@Phelan Also don't forget that Jim Ryan was pushing for fast release of No Man's Sky. But yeah, "wah, wah cyberjunk is bad". Rockstar pays or something?
To be fair Sony's own games come out when they're ready, its only really Days Gone what felt like it needed longer and even then it was in a better state then the likes of Ubi games and Cyberpunk. That said its hypocritical to take this response when theirs plenty of games released broken and unready on PS.
Jim Ryan is so smug and self important. Sony doesn't always release non-buggy games. Sony have put pressure on Devs to release games in a buggy state in the past. Stop lying and acting so superior.
Wow, it's not like an article on this site to be hyperbolic! More and more clickbait every day
Shade? If that's shade I've been dissing people my entire life and I need to calm down. Pissed? If that's pissed I'd have been nominated for angriest person alive EVER.
Get off my lawn! ::shaking fist::
I hope the next State of Play will be more exciting than that interview.
This isn't shade. It's patting himself on the back in public.
Sony is right "Stop putting out broken games"
Days Gone when it initially released?
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