The past week has been an incredibly tumultuous time for Cyberpunk 2077 . Despite receiving positive reviews for its PC version, the game was lambasted by fans and critics alike for releasing in a largely broken state on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles.
Last night, Sony announced its decision to entirely delist the game from its digital store . PlayStation owners of the digital copy of the game can now receive full refunds, and Xbox owners can now expect a similar refund policy.
NEWS
In a tweet today, Microsoft announced that it will broaden its return policy to ensure that players will receive full refunds after digitally purchasing Cyberpunk 2077 from the Microsoft Store.
The company's tweet from the Xbox Support Twitter account reads:
“Cyberpunk 2077: To ensure that every player can get the experience they expect on Xbox, we will be expanding our existing refund policy to offer full refunds to anyone who purchased Cyberpunk 2077 digitally from the Microsoft Store, until further notice.”
Two subtweets read:
“While we know the developers at CD PROJEKT RED have worked hard to ship Cyberpunk 2077 in extremely challenging circumstances, we also realize that some players have been unhappy with the current experience on older consoles.
“To date, we have granted refunds to the vast majority of customers who have requested one. To request an Xbox refund for Cyberpunk 2077, please follow the steps listed on our Xbox refund page here: https://msft.it/6010pXEHj.”
The full tweet can be found below:
Cyberpunk 2077: To ensure that every player can get the experience they expect on Xbox, we will be expanding our existing refund policy to offer full refunds to anyone who purchased Cyberpunk 2077 digitally from the Microsoft Store, until further notice. https://t.co/04TcniwVzy
WHAT THIS MEANS
Xbox is the latest platform to offer full refunds for digital purchases of Cyberpunk 2077 . This comes roughly a week after the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions of the game launched with tremendous technical issues that all but rendered the game broken. Yesterday, Sony made the remarkable decision to completely remove Cyberpunk 2077 from its digital store “until further notice.”
It’s hard to tell whether Microsoft will follow a similar approach to Sony by removing the game from its digital store. Xbox made a marketing deal with CD Projekt Red for Cyberpunk 2077 , so the terrible quality of the game on console puts Microsoft in an incredibly difficult position. As of now at least, players can still purchase the game from the Microsoft Store. From most accounts, Cyberpunk 2077 plays markedly better on Xbox Series X/S, so owners of those consoles can still digitally purchase the backwards compatible version of the game to play on those consoles.
It’s clear that CD Projekt Red misled consumers when refusing to show the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions of Cyberpunk 2077 before its release. The studio acknowledged and apologized for this decision earlier this week , but its lackluster apology doesn’t make up for the fact that the company lied to its fans. This will undoubtedly be a difficult road to recovery for CD Projekt Red, which was largely revered for its pro-consumer policies throughout the last generation of consoles.
PLAYSTATION Writer