Cyberpunk 2077 won't be on PS5 or Xbox Project Scarlett when they launch

UPDATE: There is more fuel to add to the next-gen Cyberpunk fire, according to a reddit user Astro4545's Facebook messenger chat with the official Cyberpunk account. This chat suggests Cyberpunk could “possibly” be released on next-gen consoles, although they do maintain that they remain focused on the current generation of console.

Unfortunately with sources like this, the legitimacy is unclear. Faking a screenshot or photoshopping a conversation is easy work for crafty reddit users, although considering the comment is in line with what CD Projekt Red has said so far, it's also not outside the realms of possibility. 

CD Projekt Red has already confirmed there won't be any Cyberpunk 2077 content released for next-gen consoles at launch, so if we do get a port, we could be looking at 2021 at the earliest. Of course, considering that PS5 and Xbox Series X will be backwards compatible, you should still be able to play the PS4 and Xbox One versions of it when the new machines launch later this year. 

Original: Cyberpunk 2077 arriving near the end of this console generation makes it a natural target for speculation about a next-gen counterpart. It's a possibility that a PS5 and Xbox Project Scarlett version of Cyberpunk 2077 will happen, but it's a certainty that it isn't going to arrive along with the consoles in time for the holidays next year. Two leaders of CD Projekt Red talked about whether CD Projekt Red plans to bring the first-person RPG to next-gen consoles in a recent conference call with investors.

"When it comes to next-gen, our game is coming to current-gen consoles, and this is what we have announced," chief finance officer Piotr Nielubowicz began. "Of course we do have insights into what's around the corner, what's happening with PlayStation and Xbox, and we're watching it closely. One may safely assume that at some point we're gonna do something with the next-gen, however, we cannot be very specific about what that might be, or when exactly that might be. I will only safely assume that it's not gonna be around the launch timeframe of those consoles. And I think that's pretty much it."

Nielubowicz mentioned earlier that Cyberpunk 2077 is coming to Google Stadia as well, though CD Projekt has already confirmed that it will arrive later in 2020 rather than on April 16 launch date shared by the PC, PS4, and Xbox One versions. It won't be one of the free Stadia Pro games like Destiny 2: The Collection, either - you'll have to buy it for the standard price. After Nielubowicz discussed Cyberpunk's next-gen possibilities, president and joint CEO Adam Kiciński gave a brief but encouraging followup.

"Our games were always kind of ahead of technology, they were always played best on strong PCs,"  Kiciński said. "So in many areas we are almost ready for higher specs. From a technical perspective, it seems to be doable."

Both Sony and Microsoft have confirmed that backwards compatibility is an important part of their respective next-gen systems, so Cyberpunk 2077 will likely be playable on them even if it doesn't take full advantage of their capabilities. How much power do you really need to accurately render the Cybertruck, anyway?

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