It was one of last year’s top games, a game which despite coming out of the blue managed to sell more than 3 million copies in a couple of days, selling faster than many video game blockbusters and coming close to the likes of Call of Duty and GTA V in terms of early sales.
Black Myth: Wukong has been an unabashed hit for Chinese studio Game Science then, even if the lack of an Xbox version of the game has been a sore point for many. The game launched on PlayStation 5 and PC on August 19 last year.
So what’s the reason why Black Myth: Wukong has not come to Xbox Series X/S?
The reason is that while the Xbox Series X is a very capable console and a more powerful machine than Sony’s PlayStation 5 (but not more so than the recently launched PlayStation 5 Pro) its sibling the Xbox Series S is a bit of a weakling when it comes to raw power, it boasting only 10 GB of memory and an inferior graphics chip.
The Xbox Series S lack of memory, though, is the real reason why the game is yet to arrive on Xbox, as was recently covered on IGN. Game Science CEO Feng Ji said so on Chinese social media, complaining about the lack of memory of the Xbox Series S on a Weibo post:
“Although there were no big surprises, I still felt a little emotional after getting all of them. Everyone’s fighting power is so terrifying, but the only thing missing is the XBOX robe… It seems a bit wrong (but that’s 10G of shared memory, it’s really impossible to get it without several years of optimization experience)”, said Ji on Weibo (via Forbes).
It had previously been hypothesized that the lack of an Xbox version of Black Myth: Wukong was due to some sort of exclusivity deal with Sony, but it now seems that Game Science is having a hard time getting the game running on the Xbox Series S. Actually, and since Feng Ji, talked about “years of optimization experience” (which Game Science doesn’t have) there’s a possibility the game might not hit Microsoft’s Xbox Series X/S consoles at all…
Microsoft dictates that new Xbox games have to be released for both the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S, despite X being the more powerful console by a mile. This has caused developers problems in the past. Such was the case with Baldur’s Gate 3, the Xbox version of it being postponed due to the fact that developer Larian Studios had trouble getting the game running on the Xbox Series S.
In the end, Microsoft allowed Larian to remove one of the game’s features (split-screen multiplayer cooperative mode) in order to get the game running on the Xbox Series S. The Xbox Series X version of the game does have the multiplayer mode.
Going back to Black Myth: Wukong, there’s still a possibility that Chinese studio Game Science can get the game working on the Xbox Series S, although this might take time. They could even outsource the Xbox version of the game to another studio, something they very clearly have the resources for after making hundreds of millions with the PS5 and PC versions of the game…
Black Myth: Wukong was one of the top releases of last year, a difficult Souls-like game rooted in Chinese mythology. It has sold over 20 million copies at the time of writing, and many who game on Xbox Series X/S consoles are looking forward to playing, so here’s hoping they may be able to do so in the not too distant future, then.