• The Xbox Tax?

What is the Xbox Tax? It is the conspiracy theory that Xbox games are discriminated against, purposefully kept out of Game of The Year conversations, and wrongfully given lower reviews than their counterparts. (PlayStation and Nintendo)

It sounds crazy right? That is because it is , nobody wants to address the elephant in the room. All of the criticism Xbox gets is not only warranted but it’s their own fault.

Microsoft was on top of the gaming world with the Xbox 360, however with the release of the Xbox One, they decided to abandon everything that made them successful in order to pursuit becoming a multi media console. This decision was hated by fans and since then there has been a steady downward spiral. Lack of exclusives, no real innovation, overall stagnation were the primary complaints.

These bad practices and lack of innovation continued into their current generation of consoles as the Xbox Series X|S launched with the same controllers from the previous generation Xbox one. There was also no true “Console Selling” exclusive games at launch to drive sales, and Microsoft gaming as a whole was more concerned with pushing the Gamepass platform.

To clarify there’s nothing wrong with Gamepass it is easily the best deal in gaming but at what cost? The biggest draw with Gamepass is getting Exclusive Day one Games on the service at no additional cost. However for the first 3 years of its lifespan the Series X|S have provided little to no exclusive games despite buying many game studios. There has also been a big push to get Gamepass widely available with Gamepass PC, Gamepass on smart TVs, and Gamepass on cloud devices. Which means there’s no real need to purchase an Xbox if you can experience Gamepass on any device.

In 2023 things are looking brighter! Hifi Rush and Starfield were both great exclusive games. So great that people felt they were snubbed for Game Of The Year. In a loaded gaming year like 2023 a lot of games were unfortunately “snubbed” as there can only be One winner. What is for certain is that for the first time since the consoles launch the Series X|S gave us console sellers , if they can keep this trend going into 2024 we could see a resurgence of Xbox greatness that we haven’t seen since the XBOX 360.

The bottom line is that there is no Xbox Tax but rather an “Accountability Tax”. As long time fans just want to see the Xbox Platform return to the greatness that once was.