“No One Needs Xbox,” Says Phantom Blade Zero Developer

As per a new report by Game Plays Cassi, which attended this year’s ChinaJoy, a developer from Phantom Blade Zero’s team, said that no one needs Xbox while answering a question regarding the game’s availability on the platform. 

S-Game, the developer of Phantom Blade Zero, was also at this event and mainly used the PlayStation to showcase its titles.

When asked why, the Phantom Blade Zero devs responded by saying Xbox isn’t really that popular in Asia so the studio doesn’t need to release their game on this console. Furthermore, PlayStation helps developers optimize their games with special debugging tools and even sends its own engineers which is a massive boost for these studios.

On the other hand, the Xbox ecosystem is very overloaded so developing games for them is very hard.

PlayStation Helps In Publishing Games

Similarly, the highly anticipated Black Myth: Wukong from Game Science was also at ChinaJoy and presented its title via PlayStation. Just like Phantom Blade Zero, the studio has no exclusive partnership with Sony or PlayStation and is even releasing the game on Xbox Series consoles.

The developers explained to fans that PlayStation extensively helps them in publishing games but they still can choose what platforms the titles land on.

Hence, the lack of popularity of Xbox consoles in certain areas is the major precursor behind many studios not picking them and not exclusivity deals as explained by devs of Phantom Blade Zero and Black Myth Wukong. The latter releases worldwide on August 20, 2024, for PlayStation 5 and PC with an Xbox Series version set for later.