Sony removes Poland’s Cyberpunk 2077 video game from PlayStation, CD Projekt shares tumble down

Sony has removed Cyberpunk 2077 from its PlayStation Store following complaints of glitches in the video game created by Poland’s CD Projekt.

The game that claims to be an “open-world, action-adventure story set in a megalopolis obsessed with power, glamour and body modification” and it features Hollywood star Keanu Reeves. Sony’s knee-jerk move has hit the CD Projekt, Poland’s top video game maker, with its shares tumbling down from last week’s high by 12.2% on Friday.

Sony, however, said the suspension was temporary without giving any reason. The game Cyberpunk lets gamers play as mercenary outlaw “V” when people were stuck at home during the pandemic. Since the coronavirus crisis is around, the demand for the game has boosted.

Aware of bugs

CD Projekt CEO Adam Kicinski admitted the existence of bugs as there had been fewer external testers, who could not test it from home due to COVID-19. CD Projekt has promised to work on bugs and release patches in January and February. It means the game is not ready to debut in December and the decision to launch without proper tests for bugs was a big mistake, said market analysts.

“The game needed another six months of development to fix bugs and polish it,” John Vilnis, a gamer from Brisbane, Australia said.

CD Projekt, which gained prominence with its ‘The Witcher’ series to become one of Poland’s biggest listed companies, was expected to break sales records with Cyberpunk. So far, there is no move from Google’s Stadia and Microsoft about the removal of the game from their consoles or platforms.

The launch of Cyberpunk amid the pandemic, when other big players Microsoft’s ‘Halo Infinite’ have delayed their launch is significant. Microsoft is considering full refunds to those who bought the game from the Microsoft Store.

 

Indian Budget 2017 Aims at New Thrust on ‘Ease of Doing Business’

The Indian government has announced in its Budget 2017-18 severral measures to make India a favourable destination for foreign investments by providing an environment of “Ease of Doing Business”.

The Finance Minister Mr Jaitley raised the threshold limit for audit of business entities that opt for presumptive income scheme from Rs. 1 crore to Rs. 2 crore. Similarly, the threshold for the maintenance of books for individuals and HUF is proposed to be increased from turnover of Rs. 10 lakhs to Rs. 25 lakhs or income from Rs. 1.2 lakhs to Rs. 2.5 lakhs.

The Finance Minister said that the Foreign Portfolio Investor (FPI) Category I & II will be exempt from indirect transfer provision under the IT Act. Besides, indirect transfer provision shall not apply in case of redemption of shares or interests outside India as a result of or arising out of redemption or sale of investment in India which is chargeable to tax in India, thus removing apprehensions over taxation on funds located abroad but investing in India-based companies.

Bringing relief to individual insurance agents, the Budget 2017 sought to exempt them from the TDS provision of 5% being deducted from commission payable after filing a self-declaration that their income is below taxable limit. Professionals with receipt upto Rs. 50 lakhs p.a. can pay advance tax towards presumptive taxation in one installment instead of four, under this budget proposal.

In order to allow the people to claim the refund expeditiously, the Finance Minister said that the time period for revising a tax return is being reduced to 12 months from completion of financial year, at par with the time period for filing of return.

Also the time for completion of scrutiny assessments is being compressed further from 21 months to 18 months for Assessment Year 2018-19 and further to 12 months for Assessment Year 2019-20 and thereafter, he added.

The Finance Minister proposed to restrict the scope of domestic transfer pricing only if one of the entities involved in related party transaction enjoys specified profit-linked deduction. He said this will reduce the compliance burden for domestic companies since the number of entities being covered under domestic pricing had gone up substantially resulting in longer scrutiny.