Sony yanks Cyberpunk 2077 from Playstation store after outcry

After furious customer backlash, Sony is pulling "Cyberpunk 2077" from its online store and offering refunds to those who purchased the eagerly awaited video game. 

Sony announced late Thursday that is offering to fully reimburse people who bought the game through its PlayStation store. The company is also removing the title from its virtual shelves under further notice, according to a statement posted on PlayStation's website.

Other major game selllers also moved to make it easier for customers to get their money back. Microsoft said it would expand its refund policy to include "anyone who purchased Cyberpunk 2077 digitally from the Microsoft Store, until further notice."

Best Buy also offered to accept returns of certain opened copies of Cyberpunk 2077, with the retailer on Friday saying in a forum post that it would accept returns through December 21. 

The Polish developer of the game, Warsaw-based CD Projekt, on Friday said Sony's move to suspend sales came after talks with the company. 

"You can still buy physical versions of the game in brick and mortar stores and online," the company tweeted. All purchased digital and physical copies of the game will continue to receive support and updates as we continue to improve your experience." 

A round of updates to the game will arrive within the next week, with bigger patches coming in the next month or two, CD Projekt said, hoping to dissuade customers from seeking a refund.

"On consoles, of course, the major big updates will come in January and February. So again, we're humbly asking them to wait for it, and they'll be able to enjoy an even better experience then," CD Projekt CEO Adam Michal Kicinski told Wall analysts in a special call arranged to address the snafu.

Bugs on last-gen platforms

PlayStation's decision to stop selling Cyberpunk 2077 comes only a week after the title's release and angry comments from users about the game's balky performance on some platforms.

Gamers playing Cyberpunk 2077 on older hardware, particularly 2013's Xbox One and PlayStation 4, complained that the game often froze, characters' faces blurred and other features took too long to load, rendering it almost unplayable.  

CD Projekt on Monday apologized for not showing the game running on base models of last-generation consoles as part of its pre-release marketing push. "We should have paid more attention to making it play better on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One," the company said. 

Players have reported fewer difficulties on platforms including the latest generation of consoles — the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, both of which were released in November but which remain in short supply because of strong consumer demand.

"The game launched with enough bugs to make Bethesda blush," declared one critic on Twitter. "Can you promise to never do that again now?"

Cyberpunk 2077, whose release was delayed multiple times, is a first-person action adventure cast in a dystopian crime-infected megalopolis, with actor Keanu Reeves voicing the game character. It retails for $59.99. CD Projekt said earlier this month that it had received 8 million pre-orders for the game.

The game's developers have confronted enormous pressure to finish it this year, rising to getting death threats, senior game designer Andrzej Zawadzki tweeted in October. 

Shares of CD Projekt fell as much as 20% on Friday, with the company losing nearly $7 billion in market value in the past week. The developer is known for creating the role-playing game The Witcher 3, renowned by some gamers as one of the best game series ever.

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• PlayStation 5