Xbox One Surprises Witcher Dev, Skips Poland At Launch

[hermes]

To be honest I'm not surprised. Poland only has 38 million people and even though it has made massive strides economically in the last 25 years, they aren't that rich. The one country that I was surprised at not being there was Portugal. Brazil is on the list so the Xbox one has already been localised into Portuguese, I would have thought they done the expensive bit may as well sell it.

I don't think localizing the UI and manual are "the expensive bit"... I don't even know what is the issue here.

 

[MorganL4]

I find this kind of funny actually.

Last article I read about CD P. was that they were going to support the Xbone regardless of their own stand on Microsofts shady business practices.

Seems Microsoft will not be reciprocating that support </3

CD has to make money.... And the 21 supported countries still have a huge market, therefore skipping the Xbox one would be financial suicide. Especially if they were to make the final game in the trilogy a PS4, PC exclusive.

That said, if the Xbox one fails to establish a sizable install base in the next couple years (similar to the Wii U), I wouldn't be surprised to see them drop Xbox support.


Do we have anyone from Portugal and or Poland who can speak to the nation's network infrastructure?

That's the only hold back I can think of.

 

[Yossarian1507]

To be honest I'm not surprised. Poland only has 38 million people and even though it has made massive strides economically in the last 25 years, they aren't that rich. The one country that I was surprised at not being there was Portugal. Brazil is on the list so the Xbox one has already been localised into Portuguese, I would have thought they done the expensive bit may as well sell it.

Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, every country in Balkan region, Turkey, South Africa and many, MANY more are also excluded. I (a Pole, so I'm "out of luck" as well) play online on both PC and console, and believe me when I say there's a lot of gamers out there, who actually do have money for that stuff. Yes, we are not the richest of countries, far from it. But FFS, we're also not living in mud huts, fighting for the last scraps of food. I work with many people from outside of Poland, and according to them, Poland has a great Internet infrastructure in comparison to even USA (outside of the biggest cities), so Live working properly isn't a problem. Yes, we were only a tiny percentage of the market before, but now we are not even a part of the market at all, and that's BS. If the list won't be fixed by the launch, gamers with money who will be hungry for new releases will just buy PS4 (yeah, like that would be the only reason to choose PS4 over XB1).

EDIT:

Do we have anyone from Portugal and or Poland who can speak to the nation's network infrastructure?

I didn't see your post when posting mine, but there's your answer. Poland has a great Internet infrastructure, hence you see thousands of Polish pricks in games like League of Legends or World of Warcraft (sad but true, many times I was ashamed of my countrymen in LoL games).

 

[Casadechrisso]

To be honest I'm not surprised. Poland only has 38 million people and even though it has made massive strides economically in the last 25 years, they aren't that rich. The one country that I was surprised at not being there was Portugal. Brazil is on the list so the Xbox one has already been localised into Portuguese, I would have thought they done the expensive bit may as well sell it.

Poland does much better than Portugal economically at this time, just for the record.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

They'll all be too busy playing it on PC to care.

This is probably true, but it's less about neglecting the Polish market (which is almost certainly a tiny, tiny slice of the pie) and more about not shitting on a developer and publisher that's very popular at the grassroots level. The fact that MS apparently didn't even feel it was necessary to give CDPR a heads-up about it just doesn't look good.

It was a fucking scummy thing to do, having CDPR come out and show The Witcher 3 as part of MS's circus without even bothering to tell them that little snippet of info.

Maybe someone at Microsoft should have done a bit more fact checking before shitting on CDPR... not only have they antagonised a popular developer and small publisher but they've also antagonised one of the largest game distributors in Central and Eastern Europe.

I guess the CDP legal team will be spending the next few weeks going back over their contracts looking for loopholes.

 

[Jamous]

Microsoft seem to be offending everyone one way or another as of late. I'm kind of surprised they're making so many shitty decisions.

 

[Albino Boo]

To be honest I'm not surprised. Poland only has 38 million people and even though it has made massive strides economically in the last 25 years, they aren't that rich. The one country that I was surprised at not being there was Portugal. Brazil is on the list so the Xbox one has already been localised into Portuguese, I would have thought they done the expensive bit may as well sell it.

Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, every country in Balkan region, Turkey, South Africa and many, MANY more are also excluded. I (a Pole, so I'm "out of luck" as well) play online on both PC and console, and believe me when I say there's a lot of gamers out there, who actually do have money for that stuff. Yes, we are not the richest of countries, far from it. But FFS, we're also not living in mud huts, fighting for the last scraps of food. I work with many people from outside of Poland, and according to them, Poland has a great Internet infrastructure in comparison to even USA (outside of the biggest cities), so Live working properly isn't a problem. Yes, we were only a tiny percentage of the market before, but now we are not even a part of the market at all, and that's BS. If the list won't be fixed by the launch, gamers with money who will be hungry for new releases will just buy PS4 (yeah, like that would be the only reason to choose PS4 over XB1).

Look between now and the launch date Microsoft have a limited number of units they can build and ship. So for a start if Poland bought exactly the same number of consoles per head as Germany, Microsoft would chose Germany because of the 80 million population of Germany versus the 38 million of Poland. They would make the decision based on the size of the market not the level of infrastructure. When you add in the relative size of the economies the equation gets worse for Poland, there are less people who can afford the cost in Poland per head of population than there are in Germany, decreasing the potential market even further. The same applies to all those countries that you list, comparatively small populations with medium sized GDP. The only mistake is Brazil, when they made the decision the Brazilian economy was doing fine, but now its under significant pressure due to the possibility of the US ending QE, but saying that Brazil has the 5th largest population in the world with a GDP of 1/2 that of Poland meaning there are still far more potential buyers in Brazil than there are in Poland.

 

[shrekfan246]

I find this kind of funny actually.

Last article I read about CD P. was that they were going to support the Xbone regardless of their own stand on Microsofts shady business practices.

Seems Microsoft will not be reciprocating that support </3

CD has to make money.... And the 21 supported countries still have a huge market, therefore skipping the Xbox one would be financial suicide. Especially if they were to make the final game in the trilogy a PS4, PC exclusive.

Not really...

The first game was PC exclusive.

The second game launched on the PC and was ported to the Xbox 360 after about a year.

Wouldn't really be all that odd for the third one to be PC and PS4, especially if it's much like The Witcher 2 and the story doesn't directly follow on specifically from the previous entry in the franchise.

 

[Gitty101]

All the good puns have already been taken about being Xboned...

OT: Seems like a really weird thing to do. It seems M$ has a fear of money these days and is doing everything in their power to ensure they don't get any. I'll bet most Witcher fans will be playing it on PC anyways.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

I am curious, what does it mean not to be in a supported country? I am from Uruguay, and I am sure there will be a couple console generations before Microsoft include us in some list, but I am able to play online with a 360 or PS3 provided I register a US account (most things, I still can't use the movie apps because they are filtered by IP).

Is this the same situation or has the next generation become more restricted?

Damn Microsoft, you are making piracy a little too compelling.

For instance, you can play the single player mode of Battlefield 4. But when it comes to banging out a few multi-player rounds against other players, then a popup with this [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31g0YE61PLQ] will appear.

Actually I'm pretty sure the Xbone completely bricks up and won't allow you to play games at all if you remain offline for over 24 hours, and because these countries aren't supported that means they won't get any online connection, so that means the console will only be good as an expensive paperweight and TV remote.

 

[Yossarian1507]

Look between now and the launch date Microsoft have a limited number of units they can build and ship. So for a start if Poland bought exactly the same number of consoles per head as Germany, Microsoft would chose Germany because of the 80 million population of Germany versus the 38 million of Poland. They would make the decision based on the size of the market not the level of infrastructure. When you add in the relative size of the economies the equation gets worse for Poland, there are less people who can afford the cost in Poland per head of population than there are in Germany, decreasing the potential market even further. The same applies to all those countries that you list, comparatively small populations with medium sized GDP. The only mistake is Brazil, when they made the decision the Brazilian economy was doing fine, but now its under significant pressure due to the possibility of the US ending QE, but saying that Brazil has the 5th largest population in the world with a GDP of 1/2 that of Poland meaning there are still far more potential buyers in Brazil than there are in Poland.

Of course, I was never negating that.

What I am saying, is that I don't believe launching XB1 in those countries would net a loss of profits for Microsoft. In fact, I think excluding those countries from D1 launch is the thing that will cause loss for them. Excluding all of the other things like quality, price etc, there will always be some kind of split market between competing products like PS4 and XB1. But on launch date, if there will be no XB1, everyone interested will just buy PS4, and won't be interested in XB1 when it will finally hit the market there, because they already have a next gen console (unless they REALLY want both obviously). Other people will wait for the price drop anyway, so they aren't counted in the initial sales.

I can see where they were coming from with this. I simply don't agree that it's a good idea.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

Oh well, any who were interested will prob stuck with their PC or get a PS4? Microsoft's loss really.

 

[FalloutJack]

So, the Polls are in and...it looks like Microsoft dun goof'd again.

(Yes, it WAS a horrible pun.)

 

[Reaper195]

Heh...it'd be awesomely funny if they halt all production on the game for XBone.

 

[Goro]

Australia's population just passed 20 mill, and there are 38 mill in Poland alone. MS have to thinking long term, their day 1 sales opportunities are going to be severely hampered.

 

[BlackStar42]

Oh come on, it's only Poland, who gives a toss? Excpet for the whine merchants the poles. They delude themselves into believing they're a nation and people that matter in the world when in fact they're not. I've had enough of their victim mentality for a lifetime thank you very much.

Who invited Neo-Hitler? Reported.

Does anyone know if they're selling in India? Their infrastructure isn't great, but surely they can find a few buyers in 1 billion+ people?

 

[Ambitiousmould]

Is it just me that can't get my head round any of MS' decisions with the Xbone? I understand what they are doing, but...why? I cannot for the life of me see the logic! It's like they are trying to make the shittist thing in the history of things. I can't believe that they think any of these are good ideas. Is it some sort of impossibly complicated plot such that our puny consumer minds cannot fathom, or are they just simply being as pants-on-head retarded as it seems?

Either way, it doesn't look like they are going to do very well if they keep fucking over everyone they meet.

 

[oliver.begg]

Is this the same situation or has the next generation become more restricted?

There won't be any on-line play for you and your countrymen. At all. (But you are still to connect to the Xbox Live, but no multi-player stuff and all that jazz)

Wait... So, the offline content won't check my location, but the online will ?

Damn Microsoft, you are making piracy a little too compelling.

best of all a legit xbox live account for your country is required to install the games.

so you now have a tv set box for american TV

 

[RicoADF]

Ya done backed the wrong horse there CDP, this horse will kick ya any chance it gets, even when you're tryin' to feed it.

Well they didn't back any horse, their game is on XBone, PS4 and PC, their allowing the customers to decide where to play their games, which is obviously a good thing.

OT: Oh well, Polish gamers will be playing their games on the far better console, the PS4, or maybe the PC (or both).