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EpicRandy on 15 November 2023
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Mnementh said:
VersusEvil said:

It’s not just the Xbox tax but media’s almost religious crusade of trashing Xbox. There’s never been a year where the media has collectively trashed Xbox as open and vehemently as they have in 2023 and 2023 has been a good year for Xbox.

But you’ll say “but FH gets in the 90s so the tax isn’t real” .. tell me what genre is excluded from GOTY nominations again?. COD getting its lowest ever score after ABK closed  from the same media that has been against the deal since day 1? Remind me what other COD was penalised for having a sub 4hrs SP again? I’ll give you a clue, its meta is 94 on Xbox 360. 

How about a review publication giving HFR a lower score because Xbox first party output has been barren this gen? ..  show me another game that was penalised for the same reason. I’ll wait. 

You can deny the tax isn’t real but you’re likely a NN/Sony fan or an IGN employee and I don’t know what is worse ;)

I think a lot of the trashing is down to fear of MS taking over and control gaming. I don't see that happen. In the best case MS is able to close the gap to Sony with the acquisitions. That gaming has some bad tendencies is not down to MS. Sony is the one banking fully on GaaS instead of the single player experiences they are known for, something people accused MS of, because they thought that would be the only thing on Gamepass. Square openly says they want to concentrate on AAA games and ignore smaller games, while Xbox has supported Grounded, Pentiment and HiFi-Rush and hopefully does support smaller games in the future. Microstransactions get worse and worse, but Starfield is free of it. It is kinda refreshing that in difference to each Assassin's Creed game Starfield isn't plastering a shop in your face and into all aspects of the game. We will see how that develops in the future for COD and Diablo.

And for nominations: that is ending up seriously strange. Some genres have so low chances of GOTYs: fighters, racers, puzzlers. Games considered "for the whole family" basically never are considered for GOTY.

To me Xbox trashing as more to do with the puny console wars and reviewer wanting to create clickbait title while not angering and satisfying the largest crowds. Also critics being gamers, their bias is not unlike that of gamers and since fanbases are not on par in numbers that is reflected to some degree.