Stranger's Wrath HD Devs "Given Up on Microsoft"

The developer behind Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath HD has "given up on Microsoft" over the company's failure to digitally release the game.

Speaking to VG247, Just Add Water head Stewart Gilray clarified earlier remarks which led many to believe that the XBLA port of the title had been cancelled.  In actual fact, he suggests Microsoft's lack of co-operation is all that has kept the game off the platform.

“

What I said was that we’d given up on Microsoft, not that we’d given up on 360. What I meant was that we’d given up on Microsoft doing anything with it.

He explained, "What I said was that we’d given up on Microsoft, not that we’d given up on 360.  What I meant was that we’d given up on Microsoft doing anything with it."

The code for an Xbox 360 HD port of the game, which originally launched on Xbox in 2005, has been complete for a while.  Gilray is especially disappointed by the company's unresponsiveness as it was apparently Microsoft who approached JAW about bring the game to its console shortly after a PS3 version was announced.

"Two weeks [after announcing the PS3 version] Microsoft contacts us and asked if we wanted to a 360 version," he noted. "We said yes.

"Just before Christmas, they came back and said that they didn’t want it because it’d already been on a Microsoft 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.’"

To try and resolve the issue, the idea was then floated that Stranger's Wrath HD could be distributed via the Games on Demand service rather than the XBLA.  This fell apart, however, when it became clear that the game would have to retail for $20; a problem, given that it was already available on the Playstation Network for $15.

A last ditch effort to get the game out on Xbox 360 happened in January 2012, but JAW was told that Microsoft's team had gone off the idea as it had already been released on the PS3 some months earlier.

“

We can’t wait forever. If we did, PS4 and 720 would be out.

"We said, ‘We’ve been talking to you for over 15 months now’,” explained 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. 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.”

JAW is currently in negotiations with two publishers who are said to be interested in helping them get the game out on the XBLA, but nothing concrete has materialised as yet.  If the game does ever get to see the light of day on Xbox 360 it may not be the version we're used to, with Gilray explaining, "because Microsoft dragged us along for 15 months, we’re now having to add new content to the 360 version."

Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath HD was announced in 2010 and launched on PS3 in December 2011.  A PS Vita version is still in development, with no set release date.

Luke Karmali is IGN's UK Editorial Assistant.  You too can revel in mediocrity by following him on IGN and on Twitter.

Source : ign[dot]com