{"id":705472,"date":"2026-07-22T15:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T15:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/705472\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T15:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T15:48:09","slug":"xbox-paid-more-than-it-cost-to-make-stalker-2-to-keep-it-off-ps5-for-a-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/705472\/","title":{"rendered":"Xbox Paid More Than It Cost to Make STALKER 2 to Keep It Off PS5 for a Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Xbox<\/a><\/p>\n

An interesting detail has emerged about S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl<\/a> and its timed-exclusive launch on Xbox.<\/p>\n

Sergiy Grygorovych, founder of developer GSC Game World, spoke about how that deal came to be in a recent video interview<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While he doesn’t divulge any numbers, he says that Xbox paid a lofty sum to have the game as a console exclusive for 12 months. In fact, the amount was higher than the development cost of the game itself, meaning it was profitable before it even launched.<\/p>\n

“We took more than the cost of Stalker 2,” Grygorovych says via translation. “It paid for itself before the first day.”<\/p>\n

Apparently, Xbox was so keen to net the game because of how well its trailer performed on YouTube. Indeed, some older videos have several million views.<\/p>\n

“They brought in all the documents for signing in about a week,” he said.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Stalker 2 ended up on PS5 exactly one year after its initial release.<\/p>\n

It sounds like a win-win scenario for GSC Game World; recouping your production costs immediately before you’ve sold a single copy sounds like a great place to be in.<\/p>\n

It should be noted that Sony is no stranger to paying for timed exclusives, and I imagine it too hands over a lot of money to make those deals happen.<\/p>\n

However, this is the first time I’ve heard a dev say a platform has paid more than its entire budget in exchange for limited-time exclusivity. It makes me wonder if it’s happened with anything else.<\/p>\n

Fascinating, anyway. Are you a fan of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl? Tell us in the comments section below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An interesting detail has emerged about S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl and its timed-exclusive launch on Xbox. Sergiy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":705473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[59,33409,112,33410,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-705472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-gb","tag-gsc-game-world","tag-ps5","tag-stalker","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=705472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/705473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=705472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=705472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=705472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}