Console Warriors Mad, Sad At Xbox Latest The Game Awards No-Show!

Xbox Latest The Game Awards: Xbox enthusiasts are furious in the wake of yesterday night’s broadcast of The Game Awards, which would not be the first time. The issue? The Xbox brand and games associated with the Xbox were hardly noticeable while rivals like Sony won award after award.

Ironically, the LA Microsoft Theater hosted this year’s Game Awards. While many new Game Pass games and features were unveiled, and an Xbox-published game received an award, Xbox supporters felt like their console’s parent corporation let them down. Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer did attend.

The Federal Trade Commission, which had filed a lawsuit just hours before the Awards to block Microsoft’s planned merger with Activision Blizzard, probably didn’t mind Microsoft’s reclusiveness, but the publisher’s patient fans are sick of waiting for the business to show up.

In response to Xbox’s upcoming Game Pass releases, one well-liked tweet stated that there had been “zero showings since June pretty much.” You guys detest your fans. The feeling seemed to be shared by everyone.

Kinda Funny host Parris Lilly expressed surprise by Microsoft Gaming’s absence from the Game Awards, calling it “a squandered opportunity to set the stage for what’s to come in 2023.” Wirecutter writer Arthur Gies said, “Xbox was the quietest I think I’ve ever seen at the Game Awards.”

However, Microsoft hasn’t been able to provide the inspirational exclusives that its supporters have been pleading for a while. Both Arkane’s first-person shooter Redfall and Bethesda’s massive Xbox exclusive action role-playing game Starfield missed their 2022 release dates.

At this point, even Microsoft acknowledges that Sony and the PlayStation offer exclusives that are of “higher quality.” Xbox appears to be pushing Game Pass as its revenue generator rather than making an effort to match that quality, despite a sizable, promising Halo Infinite update and the success of 2022 exclusives like Pentiment.

As it may be disheartening for ardent fans hoping for some innovation from the company, Xbox is probably playing it safe while its nightmare of a merger with Activision Blizzard continues. In its press release outlining its concerns, the FTC expressly mentions Starfield and Redfall.

The FTC is concerned that a merger would turn Microsoft into an excessively powerful gaming goliath. Despite promises it made to European antitrust authorities that it had no incentive to withhold games from competitor systems, the company decided to make some of Bethesda’s games, including Starfield and Redfall, Microsoft exclusives, according to a press release.

Microsoft would have the ability and incentive to hinder competition by manipulating Activision’s price, lowering the quality of Activision’s games, or […] withholding content from competitors completely, harming customers, if it had control over Activision’s blockbuster franchises.

Therefore, Microsoft will probably continue to operate covertly as its legal issues mount. In any case, the fans lose.

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