When asked about the announcement regarding Valve’s Half-Life: Alyx, CD Projekt said in an earning’s call that it isn’t worried about the competition the new Half-Life title brings with it.
Moreover, as reported by PCGAMER, CD Projekt’s Vice President of Business—Michal Nowakowski—responded to the potential threat Half-Life: Alyx poses to Cyberpunk 2077. “The only reason I can think of why Valve has decided to actually put this title in the market is because they actually have a corporation on the hardware side of things,” said Nowakowski. “This is probably a big effort for them to sort of try to expand that. That niche is very, very, very—and I could add a few ‘verys’ here—small.”
Nowakowski isn’t afraid of Half-Life: Alyx for Cyberpunk 2077’s sake because, from a marketing perspective, Half-Life: Alyx appeals only to the VR crowd, whereas Cyberpunk 2077 will be available to all gamers on all platforms. This implies that CD Projekt’s Vice President of Business doesn’t believe Half-Life: Alyx can compete, despite its launch date set almost a month ahead of Cyberpunk 2077.
However, Nowakowski did give Valve and Half-Life: Alyx credit where it’s due, adding, “Perhaps Half-Life will be the first stone that is going to turn into something larger as we go, but that’s definitely not going to be the case come first half of next year… At some point, VR may be a mass-market entertainment that will validate the business model behind it, but it is not the case, at least not for us right now.”
In a nutshell, while Nowakowski believes Half-Life: Alyx is an admirable and worthwhile project for Valve and the VR niche, it comes at a time when VR is still in its relatively early stages and doesn’t compose enough of the market to make games produced exclusively for the platform a threat to more standard titles that are available everywhere.
Half-Life: Alyx is slated to release in March 2020, while Cyberpunk 2077 is due out April 16, 2020.
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