Nearly six months after Cyberpunk 2077 launched and was rapidly removed from the PlayStation Store due to a number of issues, the game still hasn’t returned to Sony’s digital storefront. Developer CD Projekt Red says that it is still waiting on Sony’s approval to put Cyberpunk 2077 back on the PlayStation Store, though it hasn’t detailed what the criteria for that approval is.
CD Projekt revealed the latest update in a shareholder meeting this week. “Unfortunately, I have no new information in this regard,” CEO Adam Kiciński said via translator. “We are still in discussions and with every patch the game gets better and there is a visible progress, but as we said the decision is an exclusive decision of Sony, so we are waiting for the information about the fact that they took the decision to bring back this game. Until then I am not able to tell you anything more.”
This is the second time CDPR has placed the responsibility for removal and return of Cyberpunk 2077 on the PS Store on Sony. In March, the company similarly said that it was Sony decision to bring it back. Curiously, CDPR also keeps referring to patches improving the quality of the game, however, Sony does not have any major public quality standards in place that would cause a game to get removed from the store entirely. There are plenty of “low quality” games that remain available for purchase on the PlayStation Store.
The removal was most likely the result of CD Projekt Red’s messy handling of refunds during the botched launch of Cyberpunk 2077. At the time, it directed users to Sony to request refunds for the disastrous PS4 version of the game, but failed to make any formal arrangements with the platform holder. This led to Sony denying many players refunds, leaving them stuck between CDPR and Sony without any recourse. Eventually Sony relented and made good on all refund requests for Cyberpunk 2077, but at the same time, it removed Cyberpunk 2077 from the PlayStation Store in order to prevent any additional people from buying the game. It was a rather unprecedented move that was made all the more notable by the high profile of the game in question.
PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan also threw a bit of shade at Cyberpunk 2077 when talking about first-party Sony games in an interview. “You know, there are two approaches to this: you can either hold the date and put out the game irrespective of quality or you can ship it when it’s right,” Ryan said. “We have always taken the latter approach. There have been some fairly high-profile instances of publishers trying the former approach.”
CD Projekt Red has issued numerous patches for Cyberpunk 2077 in the months since launch in an attempt to fix a number of its largest issues, particularly on last-gen consoles. It’s also working on proper next-gen PS5 and Xbox Series X versions of the game which it aims to launch in the latter half of this year. At this point, it’s not clear what the return of Cyberpunk 2077 to the PlayStation Store would do for its sales going forward, but CDPR seems to think that its removal is impacting the acquisition rate for the game, even on other platforms.
Those who still own Cyberpunk 2077 via the PlayStation Store can still access the game, however, new players cannot purchase it unless they buy a physical copy. Cyberpunk 2077 remains available for sale on both Xbox One and PC.
[Source: VGC]
