CDPR pulled a No Mans Sky with Cyberpunk.
Their ambition was miles ahead of what they could actually pull off in the time they gave themselves. Cyberpunk needed another six months in the oven.
Except the PC version pretty much meets my expectation for the game, maybe exceeds it in some ways. It has rough spots but doesn't feel like a seriously cut down version of what they promised in the way that NMS or a Molyneaux game do. Maybe some were hoping for more but I got what I want I wanted.
Cyberpunk was first announced in May 2012 with a teaser trailer released the next year in January 2013.
PS4 was launched in November 2013.
They had all this time to get this game sorted on PS4 and Xbox One.
They likely had this game developed with PC in mind first and foremost but what the fuck have they then been doing all this time with the console versions and why announce they are developing the game for PS4 and Xbox One If they knew the hardware couldn't handle it.
Its all good to release on PC. Seems like PC have a few problems but not as bad as console versions. Should have just stopped development on console if the game was not going to fulfill their vision.
However I think they became greedy and released on console anyways because of the huge install base so as to not miss out on the the $$$ to be made.
Then they had the audacity to boast about 8 million pre-orders when the game looks and plays like dogshit on anything but base last gen consoles. 'Apologies' and 'Sorry' is not going to fix that shit.
It just makes them look more scummy because they knew what they were putting out.
EDIT: Sony better give me my fucking money back. I'm done with this pile of shit game.
Yeah, you're not wrong about any of this. They have been a mess the whole time. They never actually began development that whole first year, then they threw out a couple years of early development because they fucked up, then they put the game on the shelf, then started over in the middle of 2016, but didn't actually start the console ports until like 2019...
Like this isn't really a game that's been in development for 8 years like people think, this version of the game has been in development for 4 years, and that's in part because CDPR's management is a little dysfunctional and fly by the seat of their pants. They were unable to answer challenges that are ordinary in AAA development, like working on multiple projects at once.
CDPR's approach to this sort of problem has always been to just brute force their way through when things go wrong. Even if it's inefficient, even if it's hard on devs, to just throw enough bodies at the problem and it'll get solved. And that's worked for them so far, but when it came to the console versions of Cyberpunk, it wasn't enough. These are failures of management to plan for these sorts of logistical problems.
I think if they just made the call in April to move to next-gen and push the last-gen versions back they would have pulled it off, at least in terms of their reputation. Might have cost some sales in the short term but would have been worth it in the long run.
I think we are in general agreement, then. I do think that in order to get it to run well there could be some significant re-tooling of assets and it may be a challenge.
My complaint is mainly that this wasn't done to begin with, and it certainly could be in a much more impressive and playable state. I don't think CDPR management made the right call here. It is certainly a challenge making a game run well on so many different platforms now, but if you are one of the top studios something like this isn't acceptable when a huge portion of your sales are on consoles where the experience is awful.
Yeah, I think they were naive about what it would take to get this game running on last gen. I think upper management made some really bad decisions not understanding the ramifications.
There's a reason Watch Dogs got its infamous downgrade; cross-gen really does require concessions to the lowest common denominator. That doesn't mean you can't make something that looks great on both games, you just can't make it in exactly the same way you would if that wasn't a consideration.