Black Myth: Wukong lead blames the missing Xbox port on Series S specs, months after Microsoft claimed the delay wasn't due to "platform limitations"

Black Myth Wukong
(Image credit: Game Science)

The situation around Black Myth: Wukong's console exclusivity has gotten even stranger as the action blockbuster's lead has said the game isn't on Xbox because of the Xbox Series S' specs.

Black Myth: Wukong lead and Game Science CEO Feng Ji celebrated the game's multiple wins in the player-voted 2024 Steam Awards - where it grabbed gold for Game of the Year - in a post on Chinese social media site Weibo, where he also wagged his finger at Microsoft's more affordable console. 

"The only thing missing is the Xbox, which somehow feels a bit wrong," Feng Ji said, per machine learning translation, "but that 10GB of shared memory - without years of optimisation experience - is really hard to make work." He's of course referring to the Xbox Series S' 10GB of shared memory, down from the Xbox Series X's 16GB of memory allocation - a drop that other developers have also called out.

Microsoft policy means that no game can launch on the Series X without also coming out with the same features on the all-digital, smaller, and cheaper Series S. Larian Studios ran into a wall last year when the studio struggled to get Baldur's Gate 3's co-op properly working on the little machine, but Microsoft eventually made an exception for the juggernaut RPG and the game launched on both consoles, without co-op functionality for the Series S.

Dune: Awakening chief product officer Scott Junior bemoaned the console's specs, too, even claiming the Xbox Series S was "one of the reasons we're coming out on PC first" because "there's a lot of optimisations we need to do before we release on the Xbox." 

Phil Spencer has continually defended the Xbox Series S and argued that an "entry-level price point for console, sub-$300, is a good thing for the industry" in an interview with Eurogamer. "I think it's important, the Switch has been able to do that, in terms of kind of the traditional plug-into-my-television consoles. I think it's important. So, we're committed." It's also worth noting that high-end games like Hellblade 2 and Indiana Jones do run well on the console, even if their settings aren't maxed out. 

But the situation with Black Myth: Wukong gets a little complicated as Microsoft previously issued statements to the press that implied there was an exclusivity agreement in place with PlayStation. "We'd prefer not to comment on the deals made by our partners with other platform holders but we can confirm that the delay is not due to Xbox platform limitations that have been raised to us," last year's statement reads. IGN and Forbes reporters also corroborated the statement with their own sources who claimed there was some kind of exclusivity deal keeping the game off of Xbox consoles. 

What's really going on? Who knows! Regardless, the ESRB recently rated an Xbox Series X|S version of Black Myth: Wukong, so a release might not be too far off.

Check out our ranking of the best Xbox Series X|S games of all time and keep up to date with all the new games of 2025 and beyond.

Freelance contributor

Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that's vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he'll soon forget.

Read more
Snow falls as guards in armor and red highlights wait in Wuchang: Fallen Feathers
Black Myth: Wukong empowered fellow soulslike devs to become China's first "elite" devs on par with Naughty Dog or Capcom: "The market has been validated"
As Switch 2 approaches, original Xbox designer says console power doesn't matter anymore because content is king, and he "would not have done things the same way" Microsoft has
Black Myth Wukong
After being labeled a Dark Souls copy, Black Myth: Wukong is now getting its own imitators on the Nintendo store
Indiana Jones and The Great Circle - Indiana peers out from the shadows in stealth
Xbox bringing its exclusives to PS5 has a precedent set by Sega, but "it makes the conversation harder to create the FOMO," says former PlayStation boss
Pal wields a massive turret in a screenshot from Palworld
Palworld dev refuses to be baited into Helldivers 2 comparison: "I don't like you. Console war baiting in 2025 is beyond stupid"
A Ninja Gaiden 2 Black cover image with a DualSense controller swapped out for the main character's Katana
Ninja Gaiden 2 Black doesn't register Xbox controllers on PC Game Pass, but you can play with a DualSense
Latest in Action Rpg
Atomfall screenshot
Atomfall dev doesn’t understand how massive development teams manage to keep organised: "How do you organize a game that has 2,000 people working on it?"
A Monster Hunter Wilds character holding binoculars.
Monster Hunter Wilds' final boss is even cooler than we thought: series experts point out attacks stitched together from iconic monsters throughout the series
Monster Hunter Wilds screenshot showing a chatacabra battling a hunter
Monster Hunter Wilds' new event quest is the best one yet: bully a Chatacabra for "a pile of Hard and Advanced Armor Spheres"
Zenless Zone Zero screenshot of Soldier 11 eating crackers
Actors supporting AI protections didn't know they were being replaced in Zenless Zone Zero update 1.6: "I found out the role was recast today alongside all of you"
Monster Hunter Wilds trailer screenshot showing a young woman with long blonde hair tied back into a ponytail smiling slightly, pumping her left fist in the air
Monster Hunter Wilds' infamously confusing menus spare no player, not even Gemma's voice actor herself: "This is honestly what I’m struggling with the most"
Monster Hunter Wilds
Monster Hunter Wilds players are tricking the action RPG into thinking they completed hunt quests in mere seconds using the power of poison ammo
Latest in News
The New Thunderbolts leaping into action
Marvel's New Thunderbolts* comic steals the MCU's asterisk, and the reason why is just as big of a mystery
Pokemon Go players brace for the worst as Niantic is sold off for $3.5 billion: "This game is entering its death knell"
Stamp PSP
A 16-year-old pitch for a newly discovered first-party PSP game has me mourning the death of PlayStation's Japan Studio all over again
Astarion from Baldur's Gate 3
Baldur's Gate 3 Astarion actor Neil Newbon says he "got rid of" agents who deliberately kept him away from video game gigs: "They just didn't want me to do it"
Mass Effect
Jennifer Hale says she didn't see a single line as Mass Effect's Commander Shepard until it was time to record: "It was all cold reading on the spot"
Claymore
Over 20 years later, live-action adaptation of beloved Claymore manga and anime in development by Heroes star