The Microsoft-owned platform won’t be pulling Cyberpunk 2077 from its store like Sony did, however.
Look. It’s been a long couple of weeks. We’re all tired. I’m not going to relitigate the entire Cyberpunk 2077 mess again.
There have been enough words written on it and you’ve no doubt read enough. (But if you do want to read more, here’s Henry’s excellent report on it. It’s a whole thing.)
The biggest shock, though, came yesterday when Sony not only agreed to blanket refunds on the game, largely broken on PS4, but also pulled Cyberpunk 2077 from its digital store.
It’s an unprecedented turn of events, and follows Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red’s beleaguered senior management throwing pretty much anyone it could find – including Sony and Microsoft – under the bus.
CD Projekt Red, after promising the game would eventually be fixed, recommended disappointed purchasers pursue refunds at the point of purchase. The problem was, they hadn’t cleared that with anyone before sending players on a refund rampage. That was a problem for Sony as its PlayStation Store refund policy didn’t allow anyone a refund who had downloaded the game, hence the change in policy specifically for Cyberpunk 2077. (We’ll likely never know the full story, but pulling it from the store entirely might just be a sign of understandable frustration with the position the Polish developer has forced Sony into.)
Microsoft’s refund policy on the Xbox Store is a little more consumer-friendly, however, and it seemed that most players were able to successfully refund Cyberpunk 2077 on the Xbox platform. Most, but not all.
And so, not wanting to be outdone by Sony, Microsoft has also added an exceptional refund policy for Cyberpunk 2077.
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
— Xbox Support (@XboxSupport) December 18, 2020
Unlike Sony, Microsoft won’t be pulling Cyberpunk 2077 from the Xbox Store. At least, not yet. Stranger things have happened, though.
Update, 19 December 2020, 2.45pm
Microsoft might not be pulling Cyberpunk 2077 from its store, but it has added a performance warning to the game’s listing, seen here on the Xbox Store on mobile:
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