About

Cyberpunk 2077 On PS4 and Xbox One refers to a series of memes about Cyberpunk 2077’s poor performance on last-gen consoles, including the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Upon the game’s release in mid-December 2020, players on these consoles noted a drastically worse experience with Cyberpunk’s rendering, graphics quality, framerate and overall performance compared to PCs and next-gen consoles like the PS5 and Xbox Series X. The game’s anticipated release led to these console players debating online over CDPR’s decision to include support for older video game systems, as well as memes mocking the graphics or poking fun at those who lacked high-end systems.

Origin

On December 10th, 2020, Cyberpunk 2077 released worldwide with reviewers getting an early start the day before, though reports from reviewers stated they could only show footage provided by CD Projekt Red and no footage of their own.^[1] Additionally, footage for these reviews only included PC platforms and not consoles, such as the PS4 or XB1.

Upon release, players on last-gen consoles began noticing the game’s poor performance, which included graphical issues such as pop-in, low framerates and other disappointing gameplay. The earliest memes mocking such performance on PS4 or XB1 began appearing the day of launch. One such example was posted by PCMag’s Instagram^[2] account on December 10th, comparing the game alongside images of Baby Yoda. The meme (shown below), received over 7,500 likes in 11 days.

Spread

On December 11th, 2020, the Facebook^[3] page Gamnesia posted another example of a meme referencing Cyberpunk on PS4 and XB1, receiving over 1,300 likes, 340 shares and 124 comments in 10 days (seen below, left). Later that day, the Facebook^[4] page TEKKEN EMPEROR also posted a version, receiving over 3,900 likes, 1,000 shares and 140 comments in 10 days (seen below, right).

On December 12th, Redditor SerPal0 posted another example as a Wojak comic to the /r/memes^[5] subreddit, accumulating over 54,900 upvotes, 630 comments and several Reddit Awards in nine days (shown below, left). On December 14th, Redditor Shaggy_Poop posted a variant to the /r/dankmemes^[6] sub, accumulating over 51,100 upvotes, 628 comments and several awards in one week (shown below, right).

On December 14th, IGN shared their review of the game on its Instagram^[7] page giving it a 4 out of 10, adding that “If your only option right now is playing Cyberpunk 2077 on the base PS4 or Xbox One, we highly suggest you don’t play at all until its many terrible performance issues are fixed.” The post received over 128,700 likes in six days (seen below).

PlayStation Store Removal and Xbox Refunds

On December 17th, following the backlash and anger from console players experiencing poor performance, PlayStation announced on Twitter^[8] that it would be offering full refunds for players who purchased the game on its store as well as removing it temporarily. On December 18th, Xbox Support then announced on its Twitter^[9] that they would be expanding their refund policy for those who purchased the game on the Microsoft Store.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References