Crimson Desert's Xbox Launch Was Reportedly Almost Delayed By Sony Exclusivity Deal

Thats great! Gives more choice!

Ideal.

Tis a shame Wukong didn't also refuse Sony's offer, but hopefully it was only a short period of exclusivity that they agreed too...

@Fiendish-Beaver Still rolling out that old falsehood eh?
What company pays for exclusivity and doesn't promote it at all? None.
Got anything other than chinese whispers and bloggers to support your statement? Thought not.

It's good crimson desert is coming to all platforms, I like the looks of what we have seen!

Never played the first, but the second has me intrigued with it being single player.

@Titntin "Got anything other than chinese whispers and bloggers to support your statement? Thought not."

What about you, got anything other than your own assumptions to support your statement that Sony didnt moneyhat Wukong? This rumor has been around since the games launch, and final proof has yet to emerge. However, Titntin from the Pure Xbox site might have the official answer with documents to settle this rumor once and for all!

Been waiting for this, can't wait. I think when we got the very first trailer I said something along the lines of "probably the closest thing to dogma 2".

@Titntin not saying its true but I can see the logic of not promoting it. It pushes an useful narrative that even without a deal Xbox struggles with third parties because of weaker hardware, and look at that Sony have even more powerful hardware coming.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner I don't think it's actually linked to their other game, it "just so happens" to have a similar naming convention lol

Sony love beating a dead horse don't they maybe it's their fetish 🤷

Microsoft statements for starters, @Titntin. Also, do you see how quickly you denied the insinuation? 12 minutes. Care to explain why neither the developer nor Sony have even made comment regarding this rumour, let along deny it? They could have denied it within minutes too, if there was nothing to it, but haven't, and that is despite what Microsoft have said in official statements. They have has months and months to respond, but still haven't. Just because something has not been denied or confirmed, it does not make it true or untrue, just unverified. If Microsoft had said nothing at all, then I would be less assured that there was not an agreement in place. but as Microsoft did make a comment, not just once, but doubled down on it, I am minded to believe there was an agreement in place.

Also, there was so much fuss over this game prior to its release, there really was no need to advertise it. Thus far, despite not having had any publicity to speak of it has sold 18 million copies. So why is there any need to advertise it...?

Lastly, Sony have locked down exclusive after exclusive of the same ilk, so why not Wukong too...?

Whats so wrong with Sony getting a 3rd party (timed) exclusive for their console. Its not like they're buying this publisher so that no other company can make exclusivity arrangements with them anymore in the future, now that would be a d*ck mo- oh wait

@Wisegamer @Fiendish-Beaver The developer has spoken though and stated
""We are currently optimizing the Xbox Series X|S version to meet our quality standards, so it won't release simultaneously with the other platforms. We apologize for the delay and aim to minimize the wait for Xbox users. We will announce the release date as soon as it meets our quality standards."

Of course if you wish to believe they are deliberately lying to fit your narrative I can't change your beliefs. But the Devs have no need to lie at all and have stated it quite clearly.
If you still wish to go down down a conspiracy rabbit hole that's on you, but you have zero evidence.

As for a reply to you in 12 minutes, that's simply because I'm on the site due to a slow work day and replied quickly? Or is that some evidence of falsehood in your world?

Back to crimson desert - Its nice to see it looking so solid at this stage. There are clearly things missing - ground shadows for characters for a start, but the environments look solid and well built, and it certainly looks like most of the game systems are in place.
I remember seeing the original trailer and thinking 'it wont look like that once its delivered'. But this is shaping up nicely and will not look miles off what was originally shown.
Definitely a treat for next year then..

@Titntin still doesn't explain why all Xbox branding was absent from marketing before launch when they could have added a disclaimer saying it's coming at a later date. Plus PlayStation China heavily marketed it at launch. China is also a newer market for foreign console manufacturers as the ban was lifted in 2015. Sony has heavily invested in the region & see's Microsoft's purchase of ABK as a threat to that investment as Blizzard games are extremely popular on China. So investing in Wu Kong is a no brainer for Sony.

Scamstation is really the worst thing in the industry, they make very few first party games, all they know how to do is remasters and to compensate, they try to sign gaming contracts. exclusives with third-party games to deprive millions of players of being able to play them. It's really disgusting.

@Titntin "We can't comment on the deals made by our partners with other platform holders, but we remain focused on making Xbox the best platform for gamers, and great games are at the center of that."
https://wccftech.com/microsoft-comments-on-xbox-black-myth-wukong-delays-doesnt-want-to-comment-on-possible-exclusivity-deals-from-rivals/

I'm simply going to copy and paste your answer now:
"Of course if you wish to believe they are deliberately lying to fit your narrative I can't change your beliefs. But the Devs (platform holders) have no need to lie at all and have stated it quite clearly.
If you still wish to go down down a conspiracy rabbit hole that's on you, but you have zero evidence."

It’s a strange situation you got involved in. Basically, you refuted the argument someone else made by mentioning what one side said, simply by stating what the other side said, that is the definition of controversy. Maybe you could show us official documents to support your point, especially since this whole argument began with you refuting rumors because they lacked evidence.

@cragis0001 I cant and wont try to explain anything.

The only official thing stated was the quote I posted from the developer, which I've taken at face value as I've never known a dev to actively lie about their own releases. Normally those who have done a deal simply stay quite and don't try and pretend it's something else as Game Science have done.

Would Sony have invested in such a game? Of course, Stella Blade is not a million miles away and was invested in, but as per most examples of this, it was stated and made clear it had happened, and sony made a lot of use of the game for promotion.
I haven't seen that with Wukong and I do see the developer offering another explanation.
The guy who started the rumour, Paul Tassi from Forbes, is on record as a stating "So insider info is really all we have, and a damaging memory leak may be the culprit. Hopefully it’s fixed soon and Xbox players get a much needed win after a tough year. "

@Wisegamer Not commenting on a unsubstantiated rumour from Forbes, is not the same as stating the Devs are not being truthful is it?

We have one definitive statement from the devs - no other definitive statements at all.
Asking me to provide official documents is mere stupidity at this point - you know there is simply the official statement from the devs. With nothing else officially stated, that's what I believe as I believe in the theory of Occam's Razor.

I refuted a rumour with the only bit of factual information available, which is perfectly valid.

@fatpunkslim Are you new to gaming or something? Seems like a pretty narrow take on the industry. Remakes and remasters is not all they know how to make. Actually they're more known for making critically acclaimed games, literally just weeks ago they released Astro Bot.
Exclusivity deals are made to market your console, its what makes each platform attractive to buy. Xbox does the same, but now they also buy whole publishers, excluding any other company to ever make exclusivity arrangements with those companies ever again

Sorry to derail the topic y’all, just had to reply, now back to crimson desert

Glad Sony was not allowed to money hat another game. Square learnt the hard way that it doesn't make financial sense especially keeping the game off PC.

@LogicStrikesAgain This is such an odd take to me. Sony paying less money for third party exclusives is "good" vs Microsoft taking on literally every cost and responsibility involved with a company on top of paying several times more and not even necessarily making games exclusive is "bad". The idea that it's okay because a different company could make exclusivity deal with the publisher in the future is even more weird to me. I do think it should be reminded the publishers Microsoft bought were late stage companies that saw no more growth and were looking to sell. ABK approached Microsoft; it wasn't a hostile takeover. Zenimax had been trying to sell for a while and nearly did to EA. That said, I think pouring on morality judgments on business decisions like this is messy, but I'll say at the end of the day I hate exclusives. I'll just leave it at, we're consumers. I don't care about how businesses go about achieving XYZ outcome; I care about XYZ outcome, which in this case we're talking about making games exclusives. As I see it Sony still does it far more than Microsoft does. I don't care if it's the industry standard. It's an awful standard and I'd argue one of the main reasons why consoles peaked at an eh 155m sales over a decade ago. I imagine it's a tough sell to get people in gaming when the games themselves were a tossup if they'd be available on your system because of these deals. People nowadays hate streaming content wars and originals and having to switch between providers to keep up with one franchise. And those can all be accessed through the same device (just different apps) unlike console exclusives. It seems to be unpopular opinion among the gamers on online forums (of any kind), but I for one am really glad they're going away.

@Titntin I'm sure the memory leak got dismissed as Microsofts second response said from what they have been led to believe it isn't hardware related & mentioned it couldn't comment on exclusive deals made by it's partners. So unelse it gets dragged through the courts. We probably never get the full story.

@WildConcept6 Sure, from a consumer standpoint it can be annoying at times. But this is how companies often times need to compete. You need to differentiate yourself from others. Apple needs to innovate and come up with features that aren't found at the competitor for buyers to choose them. Thats why Disney has exclusives, Netflix has exclusives, a big Mac isn't sold at a Burger king. And why Nvidia is king in graphics cause Amd cant compete with their tech. Look at Nintendo, if they didn't have their exclusives, would they be as attractive as they are now?

Now if you don't have a big first party output, its a solid strategy to buy exclusives from a developer. Cause the competitor can do the same, even with the same developer. And there are thousand of studios. Now if you buy a publisher, and their studios. Obviously thats where you prevent any exclusives to be ever made by anyone except you.

But you do have a point with why they bought ABK. Just clarifying, my first post was just a bit of tongue in cheek not so much as to incite a serious discussion hence the emoji. The 2nd post well, i just felt i needed to clarify some things regarding the comment

For the best. The final fantasy games this gen have shown that timed 3rd party exclusives are not the way to go with how expensive games are to make. Certain cases like newer studios and new ip like Stellar Blade and questionable ip and teams like Bloober team and Silent Hill 2 are one thing but overall it’s not worth it. Especially when Pearl Abyss is an established team with Black Desert and owning Eve online.

That means the studio has integrity and cares for all gamers across multiple platforms.

More studios should learn from them.

@Major_Player It means, they thought they’d make more money if they publish themselves. We dont know when these arrangements were discussed, maybe it was when the PS5 user base wasn't as large as it is now? Maybe they didn't want to risk not selling as much as they could

@Fishmasterflex96 Depends on what the goal is. I think Sony is in it to sell consoles. And having a large and diverse set of exclusives games does help towards that goal.

@LogicStrikesAgain yes, guess should have stated it, it makes complete sense for Sony to try to get timed 3rd party exclusives. Was more so coming from the developer side where timed exclusive deals don’t make a lot of sense, especially for PS5 only for a while with no PC release.

@cragis0001 You could be right, maybe we will never get the full story. But even that's weird, as Sony as have done many an exclusive deal before and they have never been secret! Maybe the dev is lying, though I don't see any reasons why they would choose to do so. To be honest, I don't really care, another game not coming to Xbox doesn't make any difference to me as I play my 3rd parties elsewhere anyway.
I just hate the modern trend of of suggesting rumour and speculation is true, but hey, if people want to believe stuff , then let them believe Sony are eating the cats and dogs.

Regardless of any of the above, I've always wanted Xbox players to get to try the game, as I love it and think its going to be one that many will enjoy...

@Fishmasterflex96 Yeah, it can definitely be a risk for a studio. Especially as you say, if they don’t simultaneously release on PC. Also when the user base isn’t as large. The studio should definitely do their due diligence in calculating the risk vs the reward in these situations. Basically calculate if the amount theyre agreeing with is enough to offset a potential small sale volume

@LogicStrikesAgain yup and with games getting more expensive to make most devs are better off going fully multiplatform. 2nd party is different and also like I said can see a deal for the likes of Silent Hill 2 and Bloober team making sense considering Konami is getting back into mainstream gaming and also considering Bloober Team’s spotty track record.

@Fishmasterflex96 Yes for sure, but we have to keep in mind that these deals aren't being done for free. Sony is paying them money, because its expected that they sell less because theyre going exclusive. Sony needs to pay them an amount that feels to them is gonna be enough to offset the loss. So its a win win. In any other case, its probably best to go multiplatform i agree

@Titntin

To be honest, I don't really care, another game not coming to Xbox doesn't make any difference to me as I play my 3rd parties elsewhere anyway

But you do seem to have a problem (?) with those that care,about the reasons third party games are not coming to Xbox, right😉?...

@LogicStrikesAgain Or more likely is that they have integrity caring about all gamers across multiple platforms.

@Major_Player hope you are joking lol. It isn’t about integrity, this is all a business and about making $$$$$$

@Major_Player You think thats more likely? I dont think it is. But that would be nice. And i’d respect that.

If you're liking the look of this one, you'll be relieved to hear that Pearl Abyss apparently rejected a PlayStation exclusivity deal that would have put a temporary block on the Xbox release

No way! Unless this is confirmed by Hiroki Totoki and Hermen Hulst, it's just conspiracies to paint Sony in a bad light 😉😅.

@Sol4ris I don't have a problem with anyone wishing to know why they don't get a chance to play a game - I'd like to know the truth of it myself.
But I do care about the truth and not spreading unfounded rumours and I will challenge unproven rumours being offered as fact, and I wont make up BS myself. Stupid to do in here, where unfounded rumours are often treated as fact, but I don't see offering an alternate viewpoint as 'having a problem'. That's your words and certainly not mine.
A comments section should be about having an adult conversation about alternate viewpoints, not a place for everyone to fall in line with whatever the most popular viewpoint of the day is.

@Sol4ris Why would it put Sony in a bad light? You know these deals are made all the time, also by Xbox. And these types of deals also get rejected all the time. Its not like studios have to take offers they dont want to. Could be a myriad of reasons why these deals don't fall through

Read this, and tell me where this could be wrong, @Titntin:

"Yes. It is true. We did enter into an exclusive agreement with Sony. However, we are currently optimizing the Xbox Series X|S version to meet our quality standards, so it won't release simultaneously with the other platforms, because the Xbox version had to go on the backburner whilst we focussed on the PS5 version. We apologize for the delay and aim to minimize the wait for Xbox users. We will announce the release date as soon as it meets our quality standards."

My point is, every part of what the developer has said, and what I have said, can be true at the same time. Indeed, I may well have simply fleshed out the developer response without have lied at all.

My point about the 12 minutes was to demonstrate that in the intervening months Sony or the developer could have explicitly denied both the rumour, and what Microsoft said. They have chosen not to do so. And on that point, when does Microsoft (or any company really) ever heavily hint at something if it is not true? If there was no credence to any of this, Microsoft would simply either have said nothing, or would have subsequently clarified their previous statement.

It is not a case of looking for a conspiracy, it is a case of looking at all the facts that we have and coming to a reasonable conclusion, which is something I did in my daily life for 30 years, by the way...

@LogicStrikesAgain

Conveying sarcasm on the Internet is a bit of a fools errand, I know. Mea culpa....

@Sol4ris My bad. Guess i totally misinterpreted LoL!

@Fiendish-Beaver Erm, thats simply not what the developer said? As far as I am aware from their press releases, you just made that up, and phrasing and context is all important.
If the developer lied to cover up a deal, that would be a first. The developer told us what was happening and has no reason to add anything or reply to idle speculation. Why would they, they have already told us what was happening?
Microsofts response was released on the morning that the forbes story was released and in direct response to it. That guy has been wrong more times than hes been right and has no evidence for his story at all.
You say you are looking at all the facts, but the only factual statement is the one coming from the developer. Unless you believe they are lying. So rather than looking at the facts, you are relying on 'hearsay' which is never evidence. If you did this for 30 years and still cant tell a factual statement from hearsay and supposition, then I can only imagine you were a newspaper journalist.
We are absolutely poles apart on this, you start off by simply making up a statement and think thats proving something? I think we would do best to move on as we will not reach an agreement on this and our back and forths must be getting ever more tiresome to read for others. Thanks for keeping it civil, as always! 👍
Have a good evening.

@Titntin "Asking me to provide official documents is mere stupidity at this point - you know there is simply the official statement from the devs. "

Then you understand where Im trying to get. Arguing over rumors is pointless because noone can have access to the internal documents.. We're consumers; they're corporations. Their communications are carefully crafted to avoid legal issues. They may not outright lie, but they can imply one thing while meaning another, staying within legal bounds.

We'll never know the actual facts (unless leaked), so it's okay for people to have different opinions and go with them, they are not spreading false rumors. But consider all the promises made this generation by console manufacturers or developers, and what actually turned out to be exactly what we expected from these promisses.

@Wisegamer You make a lot of fair points and we wont know in the near future, if at all. Im not going anywhere so if we do find out you have permission to chastise me in some future thread!
In the meantime, have a great evening.

@Wisegamer It seems like you’re making a case where people can say anything they want without evidence and just say well we cant know for sure so it might be right. That doesn't seem like a reasonable way to go about.
Look, if anyone claims that there was an agreement between Sony, the proof of burden is on the one making the accusation. Not the other way around.
Again, there might have been an agreement. But the reasoning seems flawed if you decide to focus on speculation rather than evidence.

Of course I made it up, @Titntin!

My point is that what I said, and what the developer said can both be true at the same time.

I spent 30 years interviewing suspects:

This is a denial: There is absolutely no truth to the rumour that Sony paid for exclusivity.

This is an admission: Yes. Sony did pay for exclusivity.

This is an evasive non-response: Did Sony pay for exclusivity... Oh! Look! A squirrel...

In this case the question was: Did Sony pay you for exclusivity?

The answer was: Squirrel..! Or, to put it another way, "We are currently optimizing the Xbox Series X|S version to meet our quality standards, so it won't release simultaneously with the other platforms. We apologize for the delay and aim to minimize the wait for Xbox users. We will announce the release date as soon as it meets our quality standards." This does not have to be a lie. Indeed, it probably isn't. It just isn't necessarily the whole truth. There is a difference.

In other words, the developer does not answer the question but obfuscates by explaining what they are doing to remedy the situation. It's what politicians do all the time when they do not want to answer the question. They move the story along. A good investigator will simply return to the question, but a seasoned politician will continue with non-answers even when cornered like a rat!

However, my point still stands; Microsoft on two separate occasions hinted that there was an exclusivity deal in existence. They had no reason to do so unless they knew that to be the case. Sony and the developer not responding either to confirm or deny one exists, does not mean that one does not exist. It simply means they have not confirmed it either way.

As for keeping it civil, well you can just... 😂

@Wisegamer @Fiendish-Beaver @Titntin With the whole Wukong thing, I sense there's definitely some "thing" that happened there. It's clearly and obviously not a traditional Sony exclusivity full publishing deal, but everything we've seen and heard does point to there being some kind of unconventional arrangement that happened. We'll probably never know what, but I don't sense that it was just a "quality standards" delay. As was mentioned Sony marketed it heavily in China. Seems reasonable that a deal was made regionally for China, but either both parties, quietly, or the dev just for time/cost reasons decided to just treat it that way worldwide or something like that. MS's comments on it were...pointed, which could just be them trying to deflect blame and stir controversy, but they don't usually use that language, it stuck out, meanwhile Sony's silence is interesting, because Sony's usual policy seems to be to get out in front of media narratives and deny them. That they didn't in this case is a departure from their normal behavior. I doubt we'll ever know what happened but it does seem like some kind of thing happened. All parties have, in their own way, managed to not actually deny the claim and/or validate it.

@Wisegamer how about MS money-hatting (read: buying) half the industry? Surely that makes making a few timed exclusives pale in comparison?

@NEStalgia While a good summary as to what transpired between Sony and Game Science. This is not what the disagreement was about. It was because it was said as a fact that there was a deal made between Sony and Game Science. And while you can think that, and it might even be true, we might never know.
But the moment you present it as fact, then you must be prepared that there might be someone that will ask for proof. It makes sense to me.

Saying the situation is vague and mucky, therefore it must be true, doesn't work. Simply because there might be other reasons for it.

For example they might have just decided for themselves that they'd prioritize development for Playstation, because of the bigger Asian audience it has. Also Playstation might have helped them with development, leading to them being able to release that version earlier.

As long as we don't know, we cant state as fact that a deal was made. Even though there might have been. Its just a very mucky situation

@LogicStrikesAgain True. Where it gets muckier is when the behavior if the parties makes pretty clear there's some shades of truth to the claims, but we will never know what exactly those shades are.

This is great news for xbox gamers, for all gamers, since everyone can enjoy the game in their preferred platform. The developers can make more money, not limit their customers number and keep a healthy business to create new games in the future. Probably they were aware of other publishers/developers' situation that they did this "third party exclusivity" and their games have flopped sales-wise. See for example Square with the latest Final Fantasy games.

@LogicStrikesAgain "Also Playstation might have helped them with development, leading to them being able to release that version earlier."

Thats always been my take on the matter. I suspect the game was having trouble and it was looking like the date would be pushed back on both consoles. This seems likely as neither the PS or the PC version are particularly well optimised. Sony then stepped in with money and resources on the proviso that they had all hands on deck causing the XB version to wait and run behind a few months.

Its the situation that balances all the statements, including the numerous "its not a traditional exclusivity deal as we know it". Its also fine imo, If a company steps in to assist then they are going to want to see a return on that.