As well as a rush of whispers and gossip regarding alleged resolution disparities between third party titles on PS4 and Xbox One, there has been a developing narrative claiming that bugs in Microsoft’s OS are causing headaches behind the scenes.
“We’re on track for a great launch,” an MS rep told Kotaku. “We’re in the final stages of development and things are progressing well. Games are moving through certification now.
“We also feel great about the platform and Xbox Live. We’ve been building great multiplayer experiences for more than 10 years and Xbox Live multiplayer on Xbox One will be the best it’s ever been.”
Microsoft’s Phil Spencer and Larry Hyrb have also gone on record to say that all is fine:
However, Kotaku claims to have word from assorted development sources that a recent version of the Xbox One SDK is “very buggy” leading to devs being forced to resubmit software for certification.
It should be noted that other sources told the site that such turmoil is very much the norm ahead of a new product launch of this type.
The most damning (and still entirely unsubstantiated rumours) about troubles at MS come from blogger Pete Dodd who, despite not being associated with any particular news outlet, has a track record of accuracy having reported correctly on Sony’s DriveClub delay days before the official confirmation.
“The short story is that Xbox Live and the OS, especially in functions that involve XBL, are a complete fucking mess,” he wrote. “Things like parties dropping people when moving from one thing to another. Connectivity issues. Missed invites. Friend requests not working, etc.”