Warner Bros. announced bad news. The adaptation of the Harry Potter saga into a video game, called Hogwarts Legacy: Hogwarts Legacy, has been pushed back to older consoles. It is not a good sign.
In a tweet posted on December 13, Warner Bros. announced some very bad news for owners of a PS4 or Xbox One who are waiting Hogwarts Legacy: Hogwarts Legacy impatiently. On these consoles, this port has been postponed for several weeks: while it will be released on February 10, 2023 on PS5, Xbox Series and PC, it will be available on PS4 and Xbox One from April 4. This is not a good indicator and, in all honesty, it would be wise not to launch these two versions.
Of course, it might seem arrogant, if not provocative, to want the cancellation of Hogwarts Legacy: Hogwarts Legacy on PS4 and Xbox One — especially for those who haven’t made the leap to a console yet next-gen. But this is the meaning of the story: in 2023, the two rival consoles will celebrate their nine years of existence – it is high time to mourn them. This is a trend that will emerge in the coming months: there will be fewer and fewer new productions on PS4 and Xbox One, even though the PS5 and Xbox Series X remain difficult to find on the shelves.
Leaving Hogwarts Legacy: Hogwarts Legacy, Warner Bros. probably made a mistake
From a strictly commercial point of view, we understand why Warner Bros. does not want to deprive itself of the public PS4 and Xbox One, two mature platforms, with a largely installed base, which allows a game to be quickly profitable thanks to communities in place for several years. To turn your back on them is to give up on millions of sales. But economic reality should not take precedence over technical reality. Hogwarts Legacy: Hogwarts Legacy is a very ambitious video game. It is this project so dreamed of by fans of the universe Harry Potter. Therefore, he needs power to turn the dream into reality.
Everything suggests that Warner Bros. faces a serious dilemma. We warmly applauded his choice not to launch Gotham Knights on PS4 and Xbox One, while this experience drawn from the Batman mythology is much less ambitious than Hogwarts Legacy: Hogwarts Legacy. This new delay will allow the developers to optimize the game, that’s for sure. But above all, we see there the means of not interfering with the launch with possible negative articles, which would point the finger at technical problems that are difficult to avoid. On this subject, it will be recalled that even an ultra-optimized game like God of War Ragnarok did not escape it. Kotaku, for example, titled: “ God of War Ragnarök PS4 is running fine, but your console is making noise like a jet. »
Jurisprudence Cyberpunk 2077 supports this thesis. CD Projekt Red believed it could run its major RPG on consoles dating back to 2013, turning a blind eye to the many issues that didn’t go unnoticed by the press. When Cyberpunk 2077 came out, we heard more about the bugs – while it offered decent gaming conditions on PC. The situation was so dire that exceptional refund campaigns were put in place – and Sony pulled the game from its PlayStation Store altogether. By shifting Hogwarts Legacy: Hogwarts Legacy on PS4 and Xbox One, Warner Bros. avoids the risk of bad buzz. It’s smart.
Perhaps the American publisher will prove us wrong. maybe Hogwarts Legacy: Hogwarts Legacy will run fine on PS4 and Xbox One. But allow us to doubt it, as long as we have not had these versions in our hands.