Xbox’s Game Awards No-Show Is a Slap in the Face to Players by Ryan McCaffery for IGN
It’s a bad sign when there were more Muppets at The Game Awards than Xbox world premieres. As someone who’s been playing and covering Xbox for 20 years, I’m not sure I’ve ever been more baffled by the console-maker’s decision-making. I tweeted my frustration as soon as the industry’s glitziest event of the year came to its awkward end, and if the hundreds of responses to that tweet told me anything, it’s that this was no hot take. How could it be? Microsoft literally showed nothing for the year to come, despite promising us a huge 2023 at last summer’s Xbox Showcase.
In June last year I foolishly declared the years-long exclusives drought over ahead of Microsoft’s fantastic Fall 2021. In hindsight, that period has been an exception rather than the new rule. Xbox fans suffered through an exceptionally dry year (shout-out to Obsidian’s fantastic, if niche, Pentiment, though!) and also had to watch PlayStation exclusives delight PS5 owners at The Game Awards all night long, from Forspoken to Final Fantasy XVI to Death Stranding 2.
Microsoft may have the defacto subscription service, but without their own new exclusives to beef up said catalog, what to fans have to look forward to? I haven’t touched my Xbox since we played Banjo-Kazooie for Chapter Select earlier this year. I wish that wasn’t the case.