Microsoft Won’t Publish Stranger’s Wrath HD For Stupid Reasons

Hey, remember that really awesome Oddworld game that was exclusive to Xbox last generation, got really good reviews and was popular enough to warrant not just a port to PC years later but a whole HD remake? Guess what. Its HD remake is not coming to the Xbox 360 while the PSN and likely PC get it because Microsoft do not want to publish it.

An official dev confirmed in the comments section for the news on the latest update to the game that “The boat has really passed on that one. We’re winding up development on Stranger’s Wrath HD and Munch’s Oddysee HD. Blame Microsoft for not letting us publish on Xbox 360.”

So, why should we blame Microsoft for one of their best exclusive titles from last gen not having an HD remake on its HD console? Well, originally the game was supposed to be an Xbox LIVE Arcade title but it exceeded the 2GB limit of the time. Which is fair enough but they apparently had that part solved in March 2011. Twenty days later, still a no. At the end of April, Microsoft still wouldn’t it through. The meeting in September didn’t seem to do much either.

Another option was to push the game through Games on Demand, but apparently games there have to have sold at least 1 million copies. Which is surprising since Psychonauts only sold about 400,000 total in retail and is on Games on Demand. There are definitely dozens of games on the service that have sold much, much less than that.

Microsoft also don’t want to publish the game through any first party means because they apparently require that the game has a score of at least 80 on Metacritic. The game has a score of 82 on the PlayStation 3. The original game has an 88. Might I remind you all, these are the same people who published Yaris, Bloodforge, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Fable Heroes, and many other unpopular stinkers.

Maybe they should’ve added some bullshit Kinect feature like waving your arms to change weapons. Then I bet Microsoft would have jumped all over the chance to publish the game.

At the very least, a PC version can be expected soon if further comments on the official site are to be believed. So all it not entirely lost if you’ve got a computer from the last six years.