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Just Add Water boss Stewart Gilray has nearly abandoned hope of digital release Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath on Xbox 360.
The retro remake was released on PSN for PS3 last year.
However, while code for the Xbox 360 code has long been completed, Microsoft has seemingly left the project in the balance. And that’s despite Microsoft making the first move to get the game ported to the platform.
Microsoft contacted us and asked if we wanted to a 360 version [two weeks after it was announced for PS3],” Gilray told VG247. We said yes.
Just before Christmas, they came back and said that they didn’t want it because it’d already been on a Sony platform. We said, ‘Hang on a minute. We didn’t come to you. You approached us.’ They said, ‘Yeah, but politics here says that we don’t want it on XBLA’.”
One possible workaround that was discussed was to publish the game on Games on Demand rather than XBLA. But to qualify for that it would have to retail for at least $20 – and was already available on PS3 for just $15.
The platform holder then contacted Gilroy again in January this year, by which point it had defaulted to the has already been put on PS3” reasoning for its failing to appear on Xbox 360.
We said, ‘We’ve been talking to you for over 15 months now’,” said Gilray. ‘We haven’t stalled. You’ve been stalling us. If you’d had come to us six months ago and said fine, we would have held back the PS3 version until the 360 version was ready.’”
We can’t wait forever,” said Gilray. If we did, PS4 and 720 would be out. We have to, at some point, say, ‘We tried. End of.’ And that’s sooner rather than later now. But people can’t accuse us of not trying.”
UPDATE: Stewart Gilray has contacted MCV to clarfiy a few points. Firstly, an Xbox 360 version of the game does not yet exist. Secondly, Microsoft have refused concept submission since day one and, lastly, Microsoft and JAW do not have a publishing deal. Gilray says MS never actually entered into negotiations.
