Tag: console wars

What’s Going On At Xbox?

What’s Going On At Xbox?

Dennis

Uh, Xbox? You okay there?

I’m genuinely flummoxed by recent decision-making over at Xbox. I’ve said before that, while I’m a Game Pass subscriber on PC, I don’t own either of the current-gen home consoles – so I’m not coming at this from some kind of console war/fanboy perspective. But it’s pretty concerning to see Xbox flopping around like a dying fish, seemingly unable to turn its massive and ever-expanding gaming empire into anything remotely profitable.

If you haven’t heard the news, Xbox recently announced the closures of four subsidiary studios. One of those is the beleaguered Arkane Austin, developers of Redfall – which was one of the biggest flops of 2023. I’m never in favour of a studio being shut down after one failed project – especially when that studio has a previous track record of success. But I could at least understand why something like that might happen; we’ve seen it often enough with publishers like Electronic Arts, for example. Blame for a failed title gets pushed onto the developer – often unfairly, as studios are increasingly pushed to work on titles outside of their areas of expertise by publishers – and then they end up being closed down. It sucks, but it’s happened before.

Arkane Austin, the developer of the ill-fated Redfall, has been shut down.

But what I honestly cannot understand is Microsoft’s decision to close Tango Gameworks – developers of Ghostwire Tokyo and Hi-Fi Rush, both of which have been successful titles for Xbox and Game Pass, with the latter even being launched on PlayStation to great fanfare. Closing down a studio after a high-profile failure is one thing, but after releasing critically-acclaimed titles that achieved more than anyone could have expected? It makes absolutely no sense – and seems to be indicative of a company in disarray.

Microsoft and Xbox may have bitten off more than they could chew with the recent Activision-Blizzard acquisition. Although that side of the company is one of the only profitable spots for Xbox at the moment, the massive outlay to purchase the company in the first place has clearly burned a hole in the once-infinite pockets of Microsoft, and that appears to have led to some very short-term thinking on the part of some executives. They’re scrambling, looking for any and all money-saving options.

Twitter screenshot showing a post by Aaron Greenberg.
VP of Xbox Marketing Aaron Greenberg hailed the success of Hi-Fi Rush… shortly before the developer that made it was shut down.

Xbox has been running way behind PlayStation since the end of the Xbox 360 era, and that shows no signs of changing any time soon. PlayStation 5 consoles are outselling Xbox Series S and X consoles by a huge margin, and Microsoft has been struggling with that for a while. But Xbox’s ace in the hole should be Game Pass – as I’ve said more than once, subscriptions seem to be the direction of travel not only in the gaming marketplace, but in media in general, and Xbox has been first out of the gate with the biggest gaming subscription around. There have even been calls in some quarters for Xbox Game Pass to launch on PlayStation, such is the demand for the service.

But Game Pass is, as we’ve also discussed, somewhat of a double-edged sword. More people signing up naturally means fewer direct sales of games – because any player who’s joined Game Pass is incredibly unlikely to shell out extra money for a copy of a game they can already play. When some critics of Game Pass tried to spin this as a major “problem,” I pushed back on that, saying it was a silly argument. Microsoft and Xbox know what they’re doing, I argued, and a short-term hit to individual sales will have simply been an expected part of the equation as Game Pass establishes itself. But apparently I’ve over-estimated the intelligence of some of Microsoft’s executives…

A promo graphic for Xbox Game Pass.
Does Microsoft not know how to handle Game Pass?

Senior folks at Xbox have been seen in public expressing concern over “flat” sales, and the company doesn’t seem to know how to handle its own Game Pass subscription service – you know, the platform it set up with the explicit intention of changing the way in which Xbox and PC players pay for and engage with games. How on earth that managed to happen is just beyond me, and some of this ridiculous short-term thinking on the part of senior management at Xbox seems to run completely counter to the company’s stated longer-term goals.

Maybe Game Pass isn’t doing as well as Microsoft hoped. It seems, from publicly available data, that the service hasn’t seen a huge influx of new subscribers over the past twelve months, even with the release of major titles like Starfield. But as any film/TV streamer could tell them, building up a user base takes time, and there are bound to be bumps in the road along the way. Hitting the panic button after a few rough months and closing down studios that should be making exactly the kinds of games that Xbox claims to want to prioritise is so stupidly short-sighted that it’s almost incomprehensible.

Screenshot of Starfield (2023) showing three citizens in New Atlantis.
Starfield doesn’t appear to have led to a massive influx of new Game Pass subscribers.

Not for the first time, I feel echoes of Sega’s rather unceremonious exit from the console war some twenty-plus years ago. Perhaps that’s the next step for Microsoft, with its gaggle of newly-acquired studios. Rather than becoming a gaming powerhouse like Nintendo or Sony, producing a glut of high-quality exclusive content, Microsoft is instead going to end up as another Electronic Arts – a publisher owning a number of different studios, ready to close all of them at the drop of a hat if there’s so much as a whiff of underwhelming sales numbers.

That would not be good for gaming. Whatever you may think of Xbox consoles or Game Pass, the games industry needs competition in order to innovate, grow, and provide some semblance of consumer-friendliness. With Nintendo not directly competing with PlayStation for the same audience – being off to one side carving out its own niche – it’s up to Xbox to be the competitor that the gaming landscape needs. If Xbox is indeed failing, in danger of crashing out of the market… that’s not going to be good for anyone in the longer-term.

Packaging for an Xbox Series X console.
An Xbox Series X box.

I don’t believe for a second that this will be the end of the line for Game Pass, nor for subscriptions in gaming in general. Those things are here to stay – even if Microsoft and Xbox can’t figure out how to make them work properly right now. The direction of travel in media is still toward subscriptions and away from box sets and physical discs, and I don’t see that changing in the short-to-medium term. Game Pass, while it may be struggling to attract new users right now, is still an exceptionally good deal and a great way into current-gen gaming for players on a budget… but it’s on Microsoft and Xbox to find a better way to take advantage of that. Top tip: shutting down studios that could produce brand-new titles to add to the service that would attract new subscribers is categorically not the way to do it!

On a personal level, it’s hard not to feel for the folks at Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks, and the other studios that Microsoft has killed off this month. And for the dozens of other studios that other big publishers have shut down. The games industry in general feels quite unstable right now, with high-profile flops, studio closures, and large numbers of people being laid off left, right, and centre. Corporate greed accounts for a huge chunk of that, by the way, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Many of these decisions are being taken to boost already record-breaking profits and to provide even more money for shareholders and investors.

There was no need to shut down Tango Gameworks.

All of this self-inflicted bad news for Xbox comes just a few weeks before the company’s big Summer Showcase event, at which several new titles are supposed to be revealed. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Avowed, Flight Simulator 2024, and Starfield’s Shattered Space DLC are all likely to be shown off in detail at the event, and there’s even going to be a special Call of Duty-themed presentation following Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision. But it’s hard not to see that event being totally overshadowed by recent closures and lay-offs, and the general sense that Xbox as a brand is struggling to find a direction and an identity right now.

For players who might tune into the Showcase, or who might be subscribed to gaming news publications that will cover the event… what are they to make of Xbox, when the company seems to be all over the map with its exclusives, lack of exclusives, new studios, and studios that have just been shut down? With some of Xbox’s precious few exclusive titles already making their way to competing platforms, and studios that developed popular and successful titles being unceremoniously killed off, how can any player have faith in Xbox and the upcoming titles it wants to highlight?

Promo graphic for Xbox's 2024 Summer Showcase.
The Xbox Games Showcase is just a few weeks away.

Suppose Shattered Space doesn’t cut it for Starfield, and player numbers remain low. Will Xbox insist that future development on Bethesda’s attempted space epic is halted? What if Avowed does incredibly well and wins some big awards… but executives decide to shut down Obsidian Entertainment anyway? If I’m looking on as a potential player… why shouldn’t I just wait six months until some or all of these games come to PlayStation or to Nintendo’s next console? What’s the point in buying an Xbox any more?

All of these are questions that Microsoft has opened up by some truly bizarre and desperately short-term moves over the past few weeks and months. If you’d asked me even a year ago what Xbox’s strategy was, I’d have said clearly that there’s a focus on building up Game Pass as a subscription service with a guaranteed income, backed up by some expensive studio and publisher acquisitions to make new titles to add to the platform. But now? What is Xbox trying to do? Where’s the longer-term planning, and where does Microsoft see the Xbox brand in ten years’ time, five years’ time… or even just this time next year? I genuinely don’t know any more.

Promo graphic of an Xbox Series X control pad.
Where will Xbox be five years from now?

It’s a strange time to be following the games industry – and I suppose that’s been true for a while now, really. Despite the predictions of some doomsters, I doubt very much that we’re heading for a 1983-style “market crash.” Gaming has grown so much since those days, and I just can’t imagine a collapse of that nature happening… at least not in the immediate term. But bigger changes may be afoot, and if Xbox is losing money and unable to keep up with PlayStation, well… sooner or later, something’s gotta change.

As I said a few months ago when talking about Xbox and its exclusivity problem, I don’t believe that the company ceasing to produce consoles would be a good move for the market overall. But, as Sega found just after the turn of the millennium, focusing on software instead of fighting a losing battle on the hardware front might be what’s needed to save the brand.

Strange times indeed.

All titles discussed above are the copyright of their respective developer, studio, and/or publisher. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Xbox Series X & PlayStation 5: At The Halfway Point

Xbox Series X & PlayStation 5: At The Halfway Point

Dennis

If we assume that the current generation of home consoles will last roughly as long as the last couple of generations have, then the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 are close to the halfway point. Both devices were launched in late 2020, and as we’re now well into 2024, I think it’s fair to say we’re approximately halfway through their estimated lifespans. So today, I thought it could be interesting to consider the state of both platforms and look at how well – or how poorly – they’ve been performing!

For some background, I spent a decade working in the games industry, and in that time I worked with companies that released games on both Xbox and PlayStation consoles. As someone whose primary gaming platform these days is PC, I don’t really see a need to take sides in the so-called “console war,” so I’ll do my best to judge both machines on their own merits, as well as give my thoughts on the ninth generation of home consoles as a whole.

Promo photo of a PS5 console and control pad.
A PlayStation 5 console.

Let’s start with something I’ve talked about before: both the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 were released far too early. Not only were there brilliant games that were only just beginning to take full advantage of previous-generation hardware – like Red Dead Redemption II, God of War, and Marvel’s Spider-Man, to name but a few – but there were catastrophic problems with production and the supply chain thanks to the shit-show that was 2020. Both machines were launched with wholly inadequate levels of stock, leading to predictable results!

PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles were out of stock everywhere for well over a year; here in the UK folks were on waiting lists that could be months long, and even as the consoles’ second holiday season approached, the only choice many players and parents had was to pay massively inflated prices to scalpers. Neither Microsoft nor Sony did enough to prevent touts and scalpers from using bots to buy up available stock, and throughout the launch window and well into 2021, both companies failed to improve manufacturing and supply chain issues.

A container ship at sea.
“Supply chain issues” quickly became an excuse for why both consoles were out of stock.

Thankfully, those issues have largely abated – at least here in the UK. But now that the availability problem has been solved and the consoles have trudged their way to the halfway point in their life cycles… is it even worth picking one up?

I have to say that, even at their recommended retail price, both consoles feel like a hard sell right now. There are so few exclusive titles to make an expensive purchase like that worthwhile, with a huge majority of games still being released on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One as well as on the current generation of machines.

A tumbleweed on a dirt road.
A visual representation of every Xbox Series X exclusive title.

There have always been cross-generation titles, of course, but usually by this point – more than three years into a console generation – there are fewer and fewer of them. But at time of writing I can only call to mind a handful of games that are genuinely PlayStation 5/Xbox Series X exclusive – the likes of Starfield, Jedi: Survivor, and Baldur’s Gate 3 come to mind, but I really can’t think of many others. Some of the biggest releases and most successful titles of the last few years – like Elden Ring, the Resident Evil 4 remake, and Halo Infinite – have all been released on both current- and last-gen platforms.

Is it worth spending upwards of £450 on a console to be able to play one or two games that aren’t available elsewhere? Don’t get me wrong: great games can and always have been system-sellers. But if I’m considering such an expensive investment, I really don’t think it’s too much to ask that I’m able to play more than just a couple of exclusive games! For a lot of players, there’s really very little advantage to buying one of these new machines in 2024… because most games are still available on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles, which are a lot less expensive and which they may well already own.

Promo graphic of an Xbox Series X and its control pad.
An Xbox Series X console.

We are starting to see a shift in that area, but it’s far slower than it has been in previous generations. 2023 saw the release of titles like Starfield and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, both of which were exclusive to next-gen platforms. But unless those games were on your “must-play list,” there really isn’t a hugely compelling reason to invest in either console at this point.

I noted in 2020, before the launch of PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, that the jump in graphical quality would be far smaller and less noticeable this time around than it had been in years past – and I think that’s been entirely born out by the abundance of cross-generation titles. There are advantages to current-gen machines compared to last-gen ones, of course, but they tend to be in less obvious areas like loading times and control pad battery life as opposed to things like graphical fidelity and visuals.

Screenshot of Starfield showing a first-person viewpoint, a rifle, and a cityscape.
Despite being a current-gen-only title, Starfield is hardly groundbreaking in the graphics and visuals department.

One thing that’s definitely happened this generation has been a massive growth in file sizes! With most games now being either wholly digital or coming with massive patches and updates even on day one, downloading 100GB+ files has become commonplace. For those of us with slow internet connections, that can easily mean a couple of days to download a single game or update! That’s an annoyance in some ways, especially considering how some games with massive file sizes don’t actually seem to look much better than their counterparts from a few years ago that were one-third as big.

But large files and downloads are here to stay, I suspect. With both current-gen machines having solid-state drives (and expansion slots to add extra storage, if needed) it’s possible to create larger and more detailed game worlds than ever before. Relatively few games have taken advantage of this yet – and some of those that have, like Starfield, haven’t done so particularly well – but, despite my personal gripes with massive downloads, there’s at least potential here. Larger and faster drives on home consoles can open up new possibilities in game development, and that could lead to bigger and more immersive worlds in the years ahead.

Screenshot showing the file size of the game Jedi: Survivor.
Many titles released this generation have file sizes well over 100GB.

The question of value for money has come up a lot over the past couple of years, and while we’ve partly touched on that with the lack of exclusive games, I want to consider the price point that both consoles are at. For literally decades, console prices have come down incrementally as they get further into their life cycle. Recent console generations have seen cheaper versions produced partway through, with the likes of the Xbox 360S and PlayStation 4 Slim both arriving at around the halfway point in their respective life cycles.

This time around, however, we’ve seen price rises rather than price reductions, with PlayStation 5 consoles now £30 more expensive here in the UK than they were at launch in 2020. Despite initially suggesting no price rises were imminent, Microsoft followed suit a few months later, again rising the price of Xbox Series X consoles by £30 here in the UK. That’s despite both consoles arguably having the least-convincing lineup of exclusive games, and thus having the weakest justification for such an unfair price hike. Sony and Microsoft are billion-dollar corporations whose gaming divisions have been making money hand over fist… so these price hikes – which come on top of the rise in the price of the standard edition of many games – are honestly just disgusting. Price-gouging in the middle of an inflation and cost-of-living crisis is sickening.

A chart showing Sony's consolidated results for Q1 2022.
Sony boasted to its investors about record-breaking profits… before turning around a few weeks later and hiking up the price of PlayStation 5 consoles.

At the end of the day, I’d have expected more from both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X at this point in their generation. There have been some great games over the past three-plus years… but many of them aren’t exclusive to this generation of home consoles, leaving me with a resounding sense best summed up thus: “what’s the point?” Neither console has, in my view, given a compelling answer to that question yet. There have been a handful of titles that I could see some folks picking up a console for, but there are undeniably far, far fewer of those at this point in the ninth generation than in any prior home console generation.

There have also been plenty of duds; broken, half-baked, or underwhelming titles. That happens, and while it isn’t the fault of either console specifically, the sheer number of buggy “release now, fix later” titles has done nothing to help current-gen gaming or make it feel like a worthwhile investment.

Screenshot of The Lord of the Rings: Gollum showing a character in an out-of-bounds area.
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum will likely be remembered as one of the worst releases of the generation.

The best experiences of the last few years, I would argue, have come not on the Xbox Series X or PlayStation 5, but on the Nintendo Switch and PC. PC gaming has gone through somewhat of a renaissance, with titles that were once exclusive to Xbox and PlayStation making their way onto the platform, as well as a glut of high-quality titles. And Nintendo has been consistent in its releases on the Switch, even as that less-powerful console reaches the end of its life. Whether we’re talking Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, the remaster of Metroid Prime, or the Booster Course Pass expansion for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Nintendo has been serving up hit after hit, and offering players genuine reasons to pick up their machine.

As the ninth generation got underway in 2020, I was content to watch and wait. Even though PC has been my primary platform for several years, I’m not averse to playing on console if there’s a compelling title that seems like a “must-play.” I bought a PlayStation 3 toward the end of its life so I could play the likes of The Last of Us, I picked up a Switch to play Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Mario Odyssey, and more, and I bought a PlayStation 4 during the previous generation in order to play games like Horizon Zero Dawn and Uncharted 4. But no games of that calibre have leapt out at me this time around. Maybe one or two will before this generation comes to a close… but I’m not convinced.

A photo of a gaming PC with two monitors.
A fancy gaming PC. No, it’s not mine!

So here’s the real takeaway from the ninth generation of home consoles: buy a PC! Most Xbox and even PlayStation titles are coming to PC these days; I’m particularly excited for the upcoming PC port of Ghost of Tsushima, for instance. Having built my own PC a couple of years ago, and upgraded my graphics card just last year, I know for a fact that it’s more than a match for both current-gen consoles. Unless one of them can rope me in with an exclusive title that I can’t get anywhere else – and can’t live without – this could be the first generation of home consoles since the days of the NES and Atari 7800 that I don’t end up buying into.

As the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 reach the halfway point in their life cycles, I confess I feel a sense of disappointment – and more than a little “I told you so.” Both machines are powerful, there’s no question about that. But so far, it doesn’t seem as if anyone has really taken advantage of that power to really innovate and push gaming forward by anything more than the smallest iterative step. I knew going into the ninth generation that changes and improvements would be minimal… but even with that low bar, I’m unimpressed.

There have been some great games in the last few years. 2023 in particular will be well-remembered for releases like Baldur’s Gate 3. But titles like that feel like they exist in spite of, rather than because of, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. As we reach the halfway point… neither console has yet come close to reaching its potential.

PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S/X consoles are on sale now. All titles discussed above are the copyright of their respective developer, studio, and/or publisher. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Review-bomb Starfield by all means… but only if it deserves it!

Review-bomb Starfield by all means… but only if it deserves it!

Dennis

The console wars have taken yet another toxic turn in recent weeks, after the Starfield showcase started getting fans hyped up. Xbox and PC players are eagerly awaiting Starfield’s launch… but not everyone is happy about that. A handful of loud PlayStation fanatics have promised to review-bomb the game regardless of how good it may turn out to be, as they appear to feel a mix of helpless frustration at not being able to play Starfield and pent-up anger for which the internet, Twitter, and the world of video games are the easiest available outlet.

I’m on record as defending review-bombing – at least in some cases. If a game is bad, broken, buggy, or overly-monetised, it deserves to be called out and criticised, and review-bombing on platforms like Steam and Metacritic are valid ways for players to register their disapproval. Review-bombing doesn’t need to stop at the mechanical level, either. If players hate a game’s narrative choices, feel that the company behind it has misbehaved or mis-sold the game, detest that developers were put under too much pressure and “crunched,” or even want to register their disgust at corporations like Ubisoft and Activision – both of which have been embroiled in scandals involving toxic behaviour and abuse – then review-bombing is again an acceptable outlet.

I think we can all agree that Diablo Immortal deserved its user score…

There may be some PlayStation fans who want to register their disapproval at Starfield being unavailable on their platform of choice, and this is something that feels like a fair or at least understandable point of criticism. Although I would caveat that statement by saying that I pointed out that this would happen as soon as Microsoft’s acquisition of Bethesda was announced – and before many people had been able to get their hands on a current-gen PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series console!

Although console exclusivity has been a part of the gaming landscape for as long as there has been a gaming landscape, it’s never exactly fun to feel like you’ve been locked out of what seems to be a great experience that other players are having. In the Morrowind days, circa 2002-03, I had a friend who’d regularly come over on the weekends or after work to play the game, because he had a PS2 and I had an Xbox. Yes, even in those days, Bethesda and Microsoft had an exclusivity arrangement!

I had a friend in the Morrowind days who’d spend hours at my place playing the game on my Xbox console!

As excited as I am to play Starfield, I’m not just going to blindly declare it to be “game of the year” before I’ve had a look at it for myself! In fact, if you check out some of my other pieces about Starfield here on the website, you’ll note that I’ve said time and again that I consider the game to be firmly in the “wait for the reviews” column thanks to Bethesda’s reputation, the poor launch of games like Fallout 76 and Redfall, and the overall unfinished state of too many games in 2023. So while I’m happy to defend Starfield in cases such as this, I’m also going to share my honest opinions on the game when it launches – and if it’s full of microtransactions or bugs, I’ll be scathing about that in my first impressions and review of the game.

But on the flip side, I don’t see why someone would be so anti-Starfield – a game that won’t even be released for another couple of weeks – that they’re already planning their review-bombing campaign. If the game is broken and unplayable, excessively-monetised, or just unenjoyable to play, then by all means – go for it. Leave a bad review, encourage others to join in, and chances are if you swing by Trekking with Dennis you’ll see the game get a bad write-up from me as well. But why pre-judge Starfield before it’s even out? Is PlayStation that important? Do some people actually take the console wars seriously?

Have some folks tied their entire identities to this piece of shiny white plastic?

Humans are, by nature, a tribal lot. You see it in sport, in politics, in regionalism and nationalism… so I guess it shouldn’t be a huge shock that gaming, too, has come with its own dividing lines. But it just feels so petty, so stupid, and so small to be tying one’s identity so strongly to a gaming brand that attacking a game on another platform for no good reason is in any way part of the conversation. Thankfully we’re dealing with a small number of people, but even so. It would be better if no one thought or behaved this way!

Growing up in the UK in the ’80s and ’90s, I saw a lot of football hooliganism. English teams were even banned from European competition for several years, in part due to hooliganism, and it was something that I just didn’t understand. I was a football fan as a kid, sure, but the idea of getting into a fight or even just disliking someone else simply because of a sports team that they support… I couldn’t wrap my head around it. And when it comes to today’s console war, I see echoes of that kind of tribalism all over again.

Hooliganism at football matches was common when I was younger.
Pictured: A fire caused by hooligans at Odsal Stadium, September 1986.

I’m not naïve enough to believe that I’ll change anyone’s mind by writing this piece. The handful of aggressive PlayStation fanatics who plan to review-bomb the game are unlikely to be dissuaded in that endeavour by a plea to their better nature nor an appeal to their common sense. Those ships, I fear, have long since sailed. But I want to register my disappointment – and above all my disbelief that this kind of toxic behaviour and militant console wars fanaticism still persists in 2023.

While there are Xbox, Nintendo, PC, and mobile players who are, I’m sure, just as angry and as aggressive when attacking other platforms, I want to draw a comparison. PlayStation has done phenomenally well in recent years with exclusive titles. Ghost of Tsushima, The Last Of Us, God of War, and Horizon Forbidden West all spring to mind, and PlayStation fans are about to receive another highly-rated game that won’t be available on Xbox for a while: Baldur’s Gate 3.

Baldur’s Gate 3 will be released on PlayStation 5 the same week as Starfield is on Xbox and PC.

I have thoroughly enjoyed my time with Baldur’s Gate 3 thus far, and I highly recommend the game to all PlayStation players when it arrives in a couple of weeks’ time. Stay tuned for a review, by the way! But here’s something for PlayStation fans to chew on as they make their sockpuppet accounts and prepare to review-bomb Starfield: there’s no comparable campaign from Xbox fans to target Baldur’s Gate 3. There were no review-bombing campaigns from crying Xbox fans targeting any of the PlayStation exclusives we were just discussing… and while there may have been a few wayward negative reviews or social media comments, by and large this isn’t something that Xbox or PC players have done to PlayStation games.

Although I don’t own a PlayStation 5, it makes me happy to see great games on that platform. Part of me hopes that the likes of Ghost of Tsushima will make it to PC one day, and I’d even consider buying a PS5 if the right game came along and I had the financial means. But above all, good games are good for gaming, no matter what platform they launch on. As someone who supports gaming as a hobby, and who believes that games can be just as good – better, in some cases – than films or television shows, I support good games wherever they appear. Yes, even mobile games!

Good games are good for all players – they raise standards across the industry, push boundaries, and innovate.

In a perfect world, all games would be available on all platforms. And I get that it must hurt to see a popular game that looks great and is getting people hyped up… and know you won’t be able to play it. I’ve been there – we all have. But some PlayStation fans – a small minority, thankfully – seem to have developed an attitude of entitlement born of being spoiled in recent years. There have been relatively few Xbox exclusives for a full decade now, going back to the launch of the Xbox One in 2013 – and even fewer that were any good! PlayStation players, in contrast, have enjoyed a number of fantastic exclusive titles… and that has unfortunately led a handful of fans to begin acting like spoiled toddlers when they see anyone else having a good time or being the centre of attention.

If Starfield sucks, or if it’s a microtransaction hell-hole, I’ll be saying so in my review. But if it’s great, good, or even if it’s just okay… why bother picking on it and singling it out for a review-bombing campaign? I just don’t see the point, the attraction, or what anyone would gain by doing so.

It’s my hope that platforms like Metacritic will be aware of what’s going on, and will step in, if necessary, to hide or even delete reviews that are clearly not about Starfield itself. Such things have happened in the past, so the review-bombers could find that this whole thing is a massive waste of time in the end! Perhaps that would be the least bad outcome.

Starfield will be released on the 6th of September 2023 for PC and Xbox Series S/X consoles. Starfield is the copyright of Bethesda Game Studios, Bethesda Softworks, Xbox Game Studios, and/or Microsoft. Some promo images and screenshots used above courtesy of Bethesda. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.