Sony’s Public Shaming Of ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ Is An Unprecedented Industry First - Forbes

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Sony’s Public Shaming Of ‘Cyberpunk 2077’ Is An Unprecedented Industry First – Forbes

Published

3 years ago

December 18, 2020

Harry Miller

Cyberpunk 2077

CDPR

Last night, news broke that could be classified as one of the wildest gaming industry stories in ages. In response to Cyberpunk 2077’s poor console performance, and on last generation consoles in particular, Sony removed it completely from the PlayStation store, meaning the game is no longer for sale across any PlayStation console, including PlayStation 5. They are changing a long-held policy not to refund digital game sales, meaning you can now get a near-instant refund for Cyberpunk, but the cost was that they aren’t going to sell the game anymore at all until it’s fixed.

This is truly one of the most embarrassing moments for a major publisher in industry history, and it’s completely without precedent. Sony has humiliated CDPR on a level here that is hard to comprehend, and most would agree the publisher has earned it.

There is simply no case this high profile of a major storefront de-listing a game because of poor performance and refund issues. We have the Epic versus Apple case, but there Fortnite was removed due to Epic skirting Apple’s payment rules on purpose, triggering a lengthy legal battle. And we have a game like Arkham Knight which had its PC copy taken down, but that was by the publisher, WB, not the storefront. Here, this is Sony acting unilaterally.

How did we get here? Here’s a brief timeline.

Cyberpunk passed certification on PlayStation and Xbox, likely with usual bugs and performance issues, but CDPR assured the companies those would be quickly patched at or near launch, as is the case with most games. Certification is mostly about whether or not your game straight-up breaks a console, so that’s how the game got “approved.”

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Cyberpunk 2077 launches and its performance across platforms is massively varied. It runs pretty great on high end PCs for the most part, is mostly solid with upconverted versions on next gen consoles like PS5 and Xbox Series X, but moving into last generation, performance is extremely poor, and on base consoles like PS4 and Xbox One, the game is barely playable with resolution, framerate and pop-in issues.

As such, a ton of players start requesting refunds for the game. CDPR first makes it sound like they are working with Microsoft and Sony on refunds, but it’s soon revealed no such special deal exists. CDPR then sets up a singular email to “help” with refunds, but mostly directs people to just go through Sony and Microsoft’s normal refund process.

The problem? Sony does not give refunds for digital games, and yet they are swamped with angry customers with a barely working copy of Cyberpunk 2077. The anger starts to build not at CDPR, but at Sony.

We don’t know exactly what happens next, but it appears there were some (likely heated) discussions between Sony and CDPR behind the scenes. And so in order to break its own policy and refund copies of Cyberpunk, Sony would strip it from its store completely and not sell new copies until it was fixed. This feels like a nuclear option that CDPR left them no choice but to pursue.

Because there is only one PlayStation store and right now, only one version of the game, the PS4 version, that means even PS5 no longer has a version of Cyberpunk for sale, even if the game is running miles better on that system than on base PS4 or Pro.

At the time I’m writing this, there has been no public statement about this from CDPR except a note to investors announcing that this happened. There are signs that Microsoft will not follow suit, due to a more flexible return policy they have in place, plus they have a marketing deal with CDPR for Cyberpunk for good measure.

This is, without question, a stunningly humiliating moment for CDPR, a company that had all the goodwill in the world after the release of the beloved Witcher 3, and they had said all the right things about Cyberpunk including the repeated phrase, it will be released “when it’s done.” A statement which is now rightly being thrown back in their face.

This caps off a truly horrendous week for CDPR in which they have been caught covering up the poor performance of the game on last gen consoles by providing only PC review copies before launch, and admitting to such. And then they clearly flat-out lied about performance on last generation consoles, as we heard nothing but statements like “it runs surprisingly well” on PS4 and Xbox One ahead of launch, and that’s all we had to go on, given that there was no footage.

There are a lot of takeaways here. CDPR obviously has broken trust with fans, but I wonder how much this might scare off future pre-orders of other major titles that keep arriving in various states of being broken, even if Cyberpunk is the worst example in a long while. And even Sony and Microsoft might be forced to re-examine both their digital return policies and their certification approval process after this.

All of this is just…stunning. We have gotten used to high profile flops, whether that’s Anthem or Fallout 76 or what have you, but CDPR’s deception and the severity of the consequences for that are like nothing we’ve seen in this industry before. At this point you can only wonder what could possibly happen next, if we’ve hit bottom or this will somehow, keep on getting worse.

Follow me on Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. Pick up my sci-fi novels Herokiller and Herokiller 2, and read my first series, The Earthborn Trilogy, which is also on audiobook.

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The Ultimate Recap of Sea Otter 2024 – Pinkbike.com

Published

1 hour ago

April 24, 2024

Harry Miller

Tech

Vittoria Releases New Peyote & Mezcal XC Race Tires
Maxxis Team Spec Aspen ST Tire
New DT Swiss 240 DEG Hubs
Kali Protectives’ New Full Face Helmets
Industry Nine’s SOLiX M Hubs & Wheelsets
Michelin’s Aggressive New Wild Enduro Tires
Praxis’ New Flat Pedals, Stem, & Carbon Bottle Cage
Transmission Cage Upgrades from Kogel, Ceramicspeed, and Cascade Components
Randoms Round 1 – Sea Otter 2024
Madrone Cycles’ SRAM Eagle Repair Kits & Prototype Derailleur
Vorsprung’s New Telum Coil Shock
EXT’s Vaia Inverted DH Fork & Updated Coil Shocks
Randoms Round 2: New Tools, Goggles, Grips, Racks, & More – Sea Otter 2024
What’s New in Women’s MTB Apparel at Sea Otter 2024
Even More Randoms – Sea Otter 2024
Randoms Round 3: Dario’s Treasures
What’s New for the Kids at Sea Otter 2024
Deity Releases New Stems, Grips, & Pedals
Dario’s Final Sea Otter Randoms
Brian’s Randoms from Sea Otter 2024

Videos

With roots dating back to 1991, the Sea Otter Classic is one of the biggest biking events and tradeshows each year and brings together all sides of the biking industry from athletes to brands, spectators and consumers. Taking place in April in the sunny hills of Monterey, California, that means this event really feels like the official start to the biking season in North America. Christina Chappetta covers why it’s much different to an indoor European biking tradeshow, a World Cup racing weekend or even Crankworx mountain bike festival, in that it encompasses nearly ALL of the biking disciplines, including road cycling, enduro, downhill, dual slalom, XC, trials riding and more.

In the past fortnight, we have seen large amount of new tech releases. However, Sea Otter 2024 represents some of the first opportunities for many riders to see these things in the flesh, as well as take a deeper dive into what the product aims to do.
Welcome to a video summary from Day 2 of the Sea Otter Classic.
There are so many giveaways, interesting new products and colourful characters at Sea Otter Classic that it’s hard to stand out from the crowd. Ben Cathro takes a lap of the venue to find his favourites.

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Apple iPad Air 2024: Insider Makes Hasty U-Turn On New Feature – Forbes

Published

2 hours ago

April 24, 2024

Harry Miller

Well, that was quick. On May 18, a respected industry insider predicted a new display technology for the iPad Air that’s expected in the coming days—Apple just announced its latest special event.

The new 12.9-inch iPad Air, the report claimed, would have the same miniLED backlighting currently found on the larger iPad Pro, using the leftover inventory from the current Pro as that model switches to OLED. That was exciting news.

But now, Ross Young, the analyst who made the claim, has changed his mind. The new prediction, shared with paid subscribers only, is that the miniLED technology won’t be coming to the iPad Air, in either size.

While it made sense that the inventory could be maximized in this way, it now “makes sense” that it won’t.

Young says that while he’d heard from supply chain sources that it would, he’d now had contact from “even more supply chain sources” that it won’t.

And the reason this change of heart now makes sense is that this miniLED technology is expensive, so it would be surprising if it made it to the iPad Air, which is more affordable than the Pro.

That’s not quite all the analyst shared. He also said that there are now reports of a new iPad coming later in the year. This is a 12.9-inch iPad, with miniLED backlighting and it could arrive between October and December this year.

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This is intriguing. What could it be? Assuming that the iPad Pro and iPad Air are released in May, it’s extremely unlikely either will be updated later in the year. And if the iPad Air isn’t pricey enough for miniLED to be included, what tablet could Apple be introducing that is the same size as the bigger Pro, with a pricey screen tech, which would sit between the Air and the Pro, it seems?

Young is highly reliable, but this seems slightly preposterous to me. The only other iPad in the range due a refresh is the regular iPad (at 12.9-inches, the iPad mini is clearly out of the picture) and that doesn’t seem likely either.

It seems to me that any regular iPad will almost certainly have the same screen size as now, 10.9 inches. The regular iPad only grew to this size screen in the current generation, and Apple almost never changes designs after one iteration.

Perhaps things will become clearer as the year goes on.

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Woman who left beaten dad on floor for 2 days was 'overwhelmed' with his care, judge told – CBC.ca

Published

3 hours ago

April 24, 2024

Harry Miller

A Calgary woman who abused her sick, 77-year-old father was “overwhelmed” at the task of caring for him, a judge heard Wednesday at a sentencing hearing.

In January, Tara Picard, 52, pleaded guilty to charges of assault and failing to provide the necessaries of life after her father (whom CBC News is not naming) was found injured on a basement floor, where he’d been lying for two days.

On Wednesday, prosecutor Donna Spaner and defence lawyer Shaun Leochko asked the judge to allow Picard to serve her sentence in the community under conditions as part of a conditional sentence order.

Justice Indra Maharaj agreed to a two-year conditional sentence for Picard followed by a year of probation.

“There is no doubt she became overwhelmed,” said Spaner in her submissions. “There is no question Ms. Picard has remorse.”

Leochko told the judge that caring for her father “was really more than [Picard] could handle.”

Maharaj heard that Picard is Indigenous and was the victim of abuse growing up. She lives in a sober dorm-style facility and is working with a mental health and addictions navigator, according to Leochko.