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Better later and propperly polished then to early.

Sheeesh I remember reading up on this back in early 2018. Where has time flown to?

To put on my old man hat, "games were better when this was the norm".

Quite a few games were delayed that quarter, and honestly I think it has nothing to do with QA.

The targeted window was too crowded with games. While they probably will spend the extra time on QA, I think this was more of a marketing decision. They want more distance from Animal Crossing, Last of Us, Resident Evil and Final Fantasy, and the late Q3/Q4 window right now is pretty open.

Surprised a bit, but not disappointed.

It kind of went under the radar last year, but they mentioned fairly major changes from the last press demo slice, so I wonder if this isn't a followup on that.

My big hope for the game is that Keanu is avoidable.

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Hmm. Time to sort through my list of upcoming games and try to figure out if any are actually coming out in the front half of this year. (There's a bunch of small RPGs that are 'maybe 2020')

 LordofHats wrote:
Quite a few games were delayed that quarter, and honestly I think it has nothing to do with QA.

The targeted window was too crowded with games. While they probably will spend the extra time on QA, I think this was more of a marketing decision. They want more distance from Animal Crossing, Last of Us, Resident Evil and Final Fantasy, and the late Q3/Q4 window right now is pretty open.

Eh. I don't see most of those competing with Cyberpunk, but there are others coming out in that window that make sense:

Ubisoft shoved a bunch of games back last year because the latest <insert franchise with guns> game was poorly received. The most obvious overlap with Cyberpunk is Watchdogs Legion (which is March)
And Doom Yetmore got pushed from November last year to late March by Bethsoft.

I don't really have a problem with a game being delayed as long as the end product is better as a result. I have a lot of games I still need to play through anyway. I am very excited for Cyberpunk 2077, I've intentionally been cutting myself off from gameplay footage of it so I can go in as blind as possible.

Voss wrote:
Eh. I don't see most of those competing with Cyberpunk, but there are others coming out in that window that make sense:

Last of Us most definitely does, as will Final Fantasy VII. Not in terms of genre, but in terms of who will look to play Cyberpunk in that time frame.

It's not about competing in a direct sense." All of those games are big, highly anticipated releases. People who "play games" play all of those games. They all breach traditional demographics for the market. There's only so much room on social media for word of mouth. It's also around the time a bunch of Epic Store exclusives go out to the general market.

No point putting yourself in such a packed time frame when you don't have to.

I'm kind of okay with this, gives me something to look forward to later in the year. Hopefully Doom Eternal, and then early in the summer Elden Ring (assuming it makes some kind of june/july release) should keep me busy plenty.

*looks at Witcher III*

It's still going to have multi-GB patches within the first month.

 LordofHats wrote:

Voss wrote:
Eh. I don't see most of those competing with Cyberpunk, but there are others coming out in that window that make sense:

Last of Us most definitely does, as will Final Fantasy VII. Not in terms of genre, but in terms of who will look to play Cyberpunk in that time frame.

It's not about competing in a direct sense." All of those games are big, highly anticipated releases. People who "play games" play all of those games. They all breach traditional demographics for the market. There's only so much room on social media for word of mouth. .

See, I see those as rather niche games. As 'people who play games' and who watches a lot of 'people who play games,' I'm kind of left with a polite shrug. Or in the case of Animal Crossing, just confusion, because it apparently isn't about genetic experiments or furry porn, as the name suggests.

Voss wrote:
See, I see those as rather niche games.

I'm not sure how the highly anticipated sequel to one of the most popular games of the previous decade and two remakes of two of the most popular games of all time are niche.

Animal Crossing is probably somewhat so. The last "proper" game in the series being nearly 20 years old, but that's the demographic that they're probably looking at. People in their mid-twenties to thirties who have a very packed March-May game season. With Borderlands III's general release right in the same time frame for everyone who ignored the Epic release, why bother taking the risk? Game's aren't like movies where people only really watch certain kinds of movies in theater. Games are much more divided along age groups than genres.

 LordofHats wrote:

Voss wrote:
See, I see those as rather niche games.

I'm not sure how the highly anticipated sequel to one of the most popular games of the previous decade and two remakes of two of the most popular games of all time are niche.

Most FF fans I've heard of are concerned by the remake rather than anticipating it (or already decided they hate it, of course). The others... eh. Maybe its a console thing (which as a market is just odd), but remakes in general are pretty yawn-worthy.

Games are much more divided along age groups than genres.

That's.. not an assertion I've ever seen before. It doesn't match my experience in any way at all, I've met and interacted with very few people who care about games outside their preferred genres.



But anyway. I broadly agree with you, we're just quibbling over specific titles at this point.

Voss wrote:
pretty yawn-worthy.

I can't help but feel like this is more opinion than market reality.

The RE2 remake did very well (though it is a franchise with a history of remakes so that might color it), and the other Final Fantasy rerelease games have all done very well. The current FFVII divide to me seems more a divide between people who played the game when it was released and people who didn't, and I'll be surprised if the game doesn't sell well. They'd need some serious screw ups to botch that money pit. Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee had a troubled start, but I think that's mostly because people didn't even know they were remakes (advertising on that was really unclear), but they still sold well long run.

I'm not talking about how exciting they are.

I'm pointing out that these games sell well, and suggesting CD Project Red doesn't want to compete in such a crowded launch window.

That's.. not an assertion I've ever seen before. It doesn't match my experience in any way at all, I've met and interacted with very few people who care about games outside their preferred genres.

I think I bungled that a bit.

The problem is that in the timeframe we're looking at, we're seeing the release and rerelease of several games that were widely played across the board, regardless of the genre. Borderlands one of the biggest shooters around, and Last of Us II is the sequel to what is widely believed to be Sony's best game of the last decade. The remakes are all popular games people in their 20s and 30s now played as kids, and are going to attract attention. The most obvious demographic for all these releases are an age group, and it's the same age group that CD Project Red's games do best with.

A crowded Launch window likely doesn't worry CDPR, let's face it, THEY'RE the 300 lbs gorellia right now. And I suspect THAT is the reason for the delay.

Witcher 3's a tough act to follow. it's the best RPG made in a long time and expectations for Cyberpunk are high. VERY high. and if there's one thing that has been proven the apst few years. it's that fans can be pretty merciless where their expecations are concerned. so yeah CDPR's wanting to take their time and make sure that cyberpunk 2077 knocks it out of the park makes sense

Part of me is a little disappointed, but then I have a look at the 'games of the decade' thread and there's a huge similarity between that and my current games backlog - so I'm not sure I need anything else right now...

Am okay with this.

Make the best damn game you can. The rest will follow.

"A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad." - Shigeru Miyamoto

Well, crap.

Stupid 2020.

Yeah, heard about this.

I was already thinking I'd wait and see how stable/good/interesting/buggy it was, and not pick it up day one.

Definitely doing that now. Its good they're willing to delay rather than rush, but a 3 week delay to come out right before Xmas/New Years? If stuff comes out buggy, its going to still be buggy into mid January.

One delay is good, two are fine... third/fourth, I'm beginning to wonder if something systematic went wrong. The most innocuous reason is the marketing department was over-enthusiastic and didn't grasp the issues involved.

Voss wrote:


Definitely doing that now. Its good they're willing to delay rather than rush, but a 3 week delay to come out right before Xmas/New Years? If stuff comes out buggy, its going to still be buggy into mid January.

One delay is good, two are fine... third/fourth, I'm beginning to wonder if something systematic went wrong. The most innocuous reason is the marketing department was over-enthusiastic and didn't grasp the issues involved.

I suspect that it's a technical/gameplay problem with one or more of the console versions of the game. I'd guess that something isn't working properly with one of them, and the delay is because of that. And it's something that they thought was working properly, or they wouldn't have waited this long. The other versions of the game - particularly the PC version - are, I expect, ready to go.

Melissia wrote:Am okay with this.

Make the best damn game you can. The rest will follow.

Ouze wrote: "A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad." - Shigeru Miyamoto

Both of these comments pretty much how I feel, I'd much rather wait a little longer.

Eumerin wrote:

Voss wrote:


Definitely doing that now. Its good they're willing to delay rather than rush, but a 3 week delay to come out right before Xmas/New Years? If stuff comes out buggy, its going to still be buggy into mid January.

One delay is good, two are fine... third/fourth, I'm beginning to wonder if something systematic went wrong. The most innocuous reason is the marketing department was over-enthusiastic and didn't grasp the issues involved.

I suspect that it's a technical/gameplay problem with one or more of the console versions of the game. I'd guess that something isn't working properly with one of them, and the delay is because of that. And it's something that they thought was working properly, or they wouldn't have waited this long. The other versions of the game - particularly the PC version - are, I expect, ready to go.

Yes... I had that thought as well. But decided to skip the very long anti-console rant that would have triggered in the moment. Happily I'm too tired this morning to indulge that, as the bellowing pod of plesiosaurs* that woke me up this morning after less than 5 hours of sleep turned out to be cows that I had to help move.

*my dreams just love incorporating environmental sound effects, apparently.

---
But yes, from the wording of the announcement, I got the distinct impression they've got about six versions more than they wanted, and given how 'test consoles' work, juggling them from home location to home location (rather than just having them at the office) turned into a logistics puzzle.

Voss wrote:


Yes... I had that thought as well. But decided to skip the very long anti-console rant that would have triggered in the moment.

I can't blame you for wanting to rant. I'm going PC Master Race on this myself (I quite literally just replaced my video card this past weekend since my old one won't be able to run it; mind you, it was an old card, and this isn't the only game I'm interested in that it wouldn't run), so my thought is "Just release the PC version already!" But if my guess about the console version(s) is correct, then I suspect they've also got some big reason why they want to release on all platforms at the same time. Theorizing on the game's Reddit (which is full of people who are suddenly incredibly negative about how horrible they just know this game is going to be after the latest delay /rolleyes ) is that CDPR has an agreement with someone requiring simultaneous release on all platforms.

I'm annoyed, but after waiting this long I should be able to wait another three weeks.

Except, of course, 2020 seems to be well-acquainted with Murphy...

Weird part is that the game has already gone gold for physical production. So everything they're doing now will be going into the Day 1 patch.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Weird part is that the game has already gone gold for physical production. So everything they're doing now will be going into the Day 1 patch.

That definitely isn't weird. 'Gone gold' these days largely just means a content lock (no new content), the physical production part is fairly trivial (and imo, pointless waste of money and resources).
But day 1 patches are standard practice- no matter what, at some point you have to stop making new things and shift priority to making sure everything works. Just because you're content complete doesn't mean QA stops, and the more little things that can be fixed prior to launch, the better.

Eumerin wrote:Theorizing on the game's Reddit (which is full of people who are suddenly incredibly negative about how horrible they just know this game is going to be after the latest delay /rolleyes ) is that CDPR has an agreement with someone requiring simultaneous release on all platforms.

My guess that 'someone' would be Microsoft. With the new Xbox coming, they went hard on simultaneous xbox/PC releases and their game pass. A lot (almost all?) of what they showed off during their promos this year is dual release.
Which to me makes the console pointless, but it does mean I don't have to wait for the few console games that might catch my interest.*

In fact, I wonder if one of delays (the move to mid november), wasn't to accommodate the release of the new Xbox, so Cyberpunk wasn't coming out before the console and undermining sales on that platform.

----
The upside to all this is its really consumer friendly. Cyberpunk is basically available on everything, and multiple storefronts. No one is really missing out or being manipulated into a bigger hardware purchase.


*Which at the moment is Avowed, which is Obsidian's 'Skyrim,' set in the Pillars of Eternity universe. Not completely excited about the format change, but their CEO has been talking about doing a skyrim-style game for over a decade, and getting MS behind them made it inevitable.

I'm more than happy to voice my support for CDPR taking all the time they need to do this right. Unfortunately it seems they're both delayed and crunching, which is the worst of both worlds.
I suppose they're keen to make sure it releases for the holidays.

I'm also a fan of agreements for simultaneous platform release. Why, I hear you ask? As much as it's a setback in this one particular case (and probably others to come soon with the new generation of consoles coming), it's a bulwark against that far more insidious of threats - platform-exclusivity. That one needs to die a horrible fiery death already.

Not Online!!! wrote:
Better later and propperly polished then to early.

I honestly am on the opposite side of the fence, if only for the fact that this delay only means a prolongation of the soulcrushing crunch.

Voss wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Weird part is that the game has already gone gold for physical production. So everything they're doing now will be going into the Day 1 patch.

That definitely isn't weird. 'Gone gold' these days largely just means a content lock (no new content), the physical production part is fairly trivial (and imo, pointless waste of money and resources).
But day 1 patches are standard practice- no matter what, at some point you have to stop making new things and shift priority to making sure everything works. Just because you're content complete doesn't mean QA stops, and the more little things that can be fixed prior to launch, the better.

I am well aware of what "gone gold" means and how it works.
No, the weird part is announcing a delay in your release after you've gone gold. Especially given some of the theorized reasons for the delay having to do with functionality on different platforms.