The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf - Development Frozen - Mud Starts Flying

A public spat has erupted between CD Projekt and the French company contracted for the console version, Widescreen Games.  Let's start with GameBanshee, who let us know about a French press release put out by Widescreen Games.  Here's a snip from GameBanshee's translation, saying the development is on hold:

The development of the game The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf was suspended for the duration of the resolution of financial problems between the various partners of the project. We regret this event particularly in regards to the fans who awaited this title impatiently. I hope that we will find a solution in good understanding with our recent and historical partners on this ambitious project.

VG47 then posted Widescreen's point of view, claiming CDPR had not paid them for some time:

After having a payment being broken by CD Projekt - a big payment that we were supposed to receive - and after having committed to the project but not being covered financially on it for three months, I hold no choice but to put the team on hold,” said Widescreen boss Olivier Masclef in a phone interview this afternoon.

Masclef also said CD Projekt’s deal with Atari was out of kilter with Widescreen’s agreement with CD Projekt in terms of milestones.

The suspension came after a meeting between the three parties, called by Masclef.

CDPR CEO Michal Kicinski hit back in the comments (scroll down):

It is sad that we cannot talk with WSG in normal business way, but communicate through media. It is absolutely not our style of making business, and we answer here as we feel forced to do this to clarify the unclear information:
1. All payments were done on time according to milestone plan.
2. Truth is that payments were later than originally planned but this was solely due to delays in production. The delays were growing in the project due to WSG continued to miss the deadlines.
3. Delays and risks of further development by WSG were unacceptable by CD Projekt (this happened even though CDProjekt RED was constantly increasing main team involvement to help in the production). The most important fact is that development process didn’t make planned release date possible and moreover propositions of the new release date were changing few times. Besides the schedule, technical incapability created a risk of missing planned quality which is absolutely unacceptable. And this brought an end in our cooperation with WSG.
4. Currently the works are on hold. We are evaluating all possible options to continue the production.
Making this decision was extremely difficult and sad as we know that many people are waiting for this project. We do our best to find a way out of this situation. But final decision must guarantee high quality of the product, otherwise we won’t continue the production no matter what consequences it will bring. We are committed to the highest quality of all our games, and this is unnegotiable for us.
So no matter what the final decision or solution we will find, please be sure that it will be the best for the game quality, and satisfaction of gamers, which is the most important for us!
Michal Kicinski
Joint CEO
CD Projekt Group

Tom Ohle pointed this post out on the official forums, so he remains with them but has reduced his work load.

CDPR has similarly responded in other interviews.  From Polish site Polygamia, who first revealed the issues (thanks, GameBanshee):

From what you're saying, I gather that WSG is hugely responsible for this situation. In spite of that, the company accuses you of not paying and blames you for suspending the project.. Can you explain what happened, from your perspective?

WSG behaves in a way that is far from our business ethics. But their accusations are serious and, what is most important, untrue that is why we published a correction under the article on vg247.com. We paid for all the milestones on time, just after they had been accepted. Of course, it was later than planned, because the milestones were presented for acceptance with delays and they were inconsistent with the specification. We put an enormous effort to make sure the production goes the right way, and still the plans were becoming invalid, and there were new delays? After a few such incidents, we sent a large team over to Lyon. The group consisted not only of people involved in the project, but also of technology managers from RED and Metropolis. They spent one whole week to examine thoroughly the whole project and its technology. As a result, we found out that WSG's promises had no grounds in reality and that the game's premiere date and quality cannot be guaranteed. So, after a long discussion, we decided to suspend the cooperation with WSG, because we understood there is too much risk in it. And actually we haven't paid for the last milestone, but only because it wasn't complete and we have already started the termination of the contract.