The curious case of what happened behind the scenes of Black Myth: Wukong suddenly skipping Xbox has been a story with many twists and turns. A recent inter or has now added another layer to it with a suggestion that PlayStation had some sort of deal with the developer.
In an interview posted directly on Sony Interactive on March 27th Phil Rosenberg, the outgoing SVP of Global Partner Development and Relations for PlayStation talked about his 20 years at the company and his stepping away. While the entire interview is a great read, of particular interest is what was said about how they find partners and some of the teams they work with.
When asked about how the team identifies what developers to partner with Rosenberg had this to day:
"We have for instance in GPDR, the Content Ventures team led by Christian Svensson. There's nobody better in the world than Christian and Shawne Benson at finding hidden gems and nurturing up-and-coming companies that are probably off the radar for most of us. They get tons of support from the third-party account management team and the partner development team, who are often the very first points of contact."
Very standard stuff. However the second part of his answer is what will likely get people talking:
"[This team worked with] Annapurna Games very early on games like Stray. The same approach also led our support of Genshin Impact, Black Myth: Wukong and Stellar Blade for example."
Of course Stray, Stellar Blade and Genshin Impact all had some kind of exclusivity deal with PlayStation. Genshin and Stray have since come to Xbox while Stellar Blade hasn't as of yet. The mention of Black Myth will at least raise some eyebrows.
He Said, She Said
Since the game was originally delayed on Xbox the topic has centred around why. Xbox seemed to imply it was delayed due to a sudden PlayStation exclusive deal, and insiders such as Windows Central's Jez Corden were led to believe this was the case.
Game Science, the games developer, has said it's due to the Series S being unable to run the game with the teams current experience. In a post on a Chinese social media platform in January, the games director said:
"Although it wasn't too surprising, I still feel a bit emotional after securing everything. Everyone's combat power is truly terrifying. The only thing missing is the Xbox robe... which somehow feels a bit wrong (but that 10GB of shared memory"”without years of optimization experience, it's really hard to make it work)."
PlayStation themselves never commented, leading to many thinking the later argument was true. After all PlayStation isn't exactly shy about when they sign exclusivity deals. Plus I'm not sure what the developer has to gain by lying.
Regardless this adds yet another wrinkle to this never ending story. It's possible Rosenberg was simply referring to a marketing deal, but the fact he mentioned other exclusives they partnered with suggests it could be more than that.
It's also possible Game Science knew they couldn't get it on Xbox and secured a last minute deal with PlayStation for some extra money. Either way it's a story that I'm sure won't go away any time soon.
