For those unaware, this has been a narrative that picked up steam when Starfield got released, and even more steam when it didn’t get a spot on the GOTY list for the Game Awards. The thought process behind it seems to be that for every single game on Xbox but not on Playstation, reviewers and journalists form a secret cabal to deliberately sabotage these games with poor review scores and negative coverage. But, according to these conspiracy theorists, if these games were released, either exclusively or simultaneously, on Playstation, they would receive much higher scores and more positive coverage. Apparently, Starfield would’ve received a 96 score if it was on Playstation…
The sheer number of factors that have to be ignored here for this to even begin to make sense is bewildering, like how come player reviews on Steam are Mixed for Starfield? Would they be Overwhelmingly Positive if the game was also on Playstation, like what? But mostly I think it’s just sad. Because instead of demanding better quality from their corporate overlords, these people instead choose to bow down like they’re in a cult and accuse everyone outside as being indoctrinated for saying that “Xbox just didn’t release a banger with Starfield”. If you’re saying that, that must mean you’re either a Sony pony or you’ve been bribed or indoctrinated by the cabal!
It’s not the quality of the game, oh no, it’s the secret cabal of journalists conspiring to harm the Xbox brand and being paid off by Playstation, except when they do give positive reviews to Xbox games, in which case they are completely independent and the conspiracy ceases to exist.
I don’t mean this to sound disrespectful at all but this just reads like redundant console war stuff. Who cares who’s better? Just play what you want to play and let others do the same, problem solved
However, to reply directly to your statements, everything you’ve said is a gross exaggeration. To be clear before I say this next bit, I own both PS and Xbox. As stated, the whole console wars thing is just silly, so you need to look at them both individually, not comparatively.
PS is in a weird place right now with Jim Ryan and other long serving figureheads leaving the company, as well as the supposed development of a number of live service games that have now been reduced. We don’t currently know what’s next in regards to PS First Party outside of TLOUP2R. Despite this, Spider-Man 2 is the 4th best selling game of the year and it only released 2 months ago. And this year has been an absolute banger for games with many receiving very high review scores. On top of that, since the PS5 launched we’ve seen First Party or Second Party Exclusive releases such as GoW:R, HFW (including DLC), Returnal, Ratchet and Clank, Sack Boy, TLOUP1, Ghost of Tsushima, Death Stranding Directors Cut, Spider-Man Miles Morales, a Spider-Man remaster, GT7, Demons Souls, etc. That’s a phenomenal line up of games and there are more as well as the list of last generation games like HZD, Uncharted, Detroit, GoW, Infamous, etc. that can be played on the PS5.
Hardware wise, the PS5 is currently selling more than the PS4 at the same point in its life cycle despite all the stock issues through the pandemic and such. They’ve also released PSVR2 (not the best point to make I know) a surprisingly popular remote play device with the PS Portal, as well as new headset and earbuds. And let’s not forget to mention the haptic feedback and 3D audio features, standard across all PS5 accessories (no special purchase required) that lead to a much more immersive experience for the player and reviewer alike.
Outside of the recent acquisitions of Insomniac, Bungie and House Marque, most of the studios PS own are teams they have developed and invested heavily in over around 30 years of PS existing. Naughty Dog are arguably the best dev team on the planet and that is from years of support from Sony
Xbox on the other hand is a different story.
Phil Spencer has been the Xbox CEO for a long time now and personally I’m yet to see what contributions have been made to the industry as a whole. Game Pass is a great addition to the Xbox but it simply isn’t doing the numbers they want with the service it currently provides. 3rd party triple A is the bread and butter of gaming and the leaked FTC documents clearly show that the cost to put 3rd Party AAA on Game Pass just is not feasible. So Game Pass is filled with AA, A and first party titles.
Xbox first party is in dire straits at the minute. As far as I can remember so far this gen we’ve had Gears 5 (I’m a huge Gears fan and this game broke me) Halo: Infinite (terrible release but is doing better), Forza, Red Fall and Starfield. There was no First Party release in 2022. Redfall speaks for itself and I can’t comment on Starfield as I haven’t played it myself, but from what I have seen, it looks like a Bethesda RPG, which is great, but there was so much hype for this game on build up to release after nearly 2 full years of no release (excluding Redfall for obvious reasons) people were just clamouring for something, anything to be released.
Hardware wise there are the newer models of X/S and basically the ability to access games anywhere. Phone, laptop, TV, etc. am I missing anything? The official headset is great, I really enjoy mine.
In regard to studios, I am not aware of any studio that Xbox didn’t purchase. Possibly the Coalition as they were Black Tusk beforehand but I don’t know the history there. But there appears to be a lack of management when it comes to the studios Xbox own. 343 have had questionable results with the Halo franchise. Coalition are running Gears into the ground. Arkane is a team that are very highly thought of in the industry with releases such as Dishonoured, Prey, Death Loop, etc. but they get purchased by Xbox and their first release under them is Redfall (Death Loop was already in development when purchased). Ninja Theory were purchased about 5/6 years ago and are yet to release a game. And since then both Zenimax and ABK have been purchased. With figureheads such as Pete Hines leaving as a result.
It’s difficult to say all of this because there’s nothing I want more than Xbox to turn around and release banger after banger and give me a reason to turn my Xbox on again. But for a long, long time now there hasn’t been one. Take a step back and look at what both companies are doing and see who’s doing it better. Phil Spencer himself (on Kinda Funny after Redfall released) stated ‘making good games is not the answer to our problems’. You want to know why games review worse on Xbox? That’s your answer