Microsoft and Xbox have always done a good job of encouraging fans of the firm's iconic gaming brand to share honest and detailed feedback about it, though something that's often frustrated many is that it's difficult to parse whether or not your input has actually been heard and considered. Now, though, that's being addressed thanks to the introduction of a brand new avenue for critique.
I'm referring to Xbox Player Voice, a system that just launched and is now available for Xbox users to engage with. Xbox Player Voice is effectively a forum on Microsoft's website that will serve as a hub for feedback and suggestions that players give to the Xbox team, complete with a Reddit-like upvoting system, comment sections for each post, the option to pin and follow specific threads, and filters that make it easy to find posts that pertain to specific device types or subjects.
Notably, you can also filter for topics that have official responses from Xbox developers in them, and Microsoft can tag posts with statuses like "We're considering this" or "We're working on this" to keep fans informed about how the company is (or isn't) acting on specific pieces of feedback given. You can check the Xbox Player Voice site out here.
Microsoft announced Xbox Player Voice on Monday on Xbox Wire, noting that with the new forum, "The goal is simple: make it easier to share input and see how it’s handled."
"When you submit feedback, teams review and organize it so it can be understood and considered alongside other work. In some cases, ideas will move forward. In others, they may take longer to implement or may not be something we can act on," Team Xbox explained. "When there are meaningful updates, we’ll share them."
The Xbox Player Voice page has only been live for a couple of hours as I write this, but it's already seen a ton of engagement from the community, and fans have already made their top issue with Xbox clear: its lack of exclusives. A post about the return of exclusives already has over 1,700 upvotes — 500 more than the runner-up thread about the desire for more backwards compatible games (relevant, since the Backwards Compatibility Program is coming back in some capacity).
The loud-and-clear statement comes after Xbox's new CEO Asha Sharma recently commented that "The plan is the plan until it's not the plan" in reference to Microsoft's policy of releasing first-party games multiplatform, and later noted that she and Team Xbox will "make some calls" on the matter (though she doesn't want to rush the process of doing so).
Ultimately, it's a very tricky and complicated decision for Sharma and her team, as the value of how exclusives would improve the desirability of Xbox as a brand have to be weighed against the profitability of releasing games multiplatform. But we already know Microsoft is aware of feedback about it, and I suspect we'll learn more about the company's plans through Xbox Player Voice when it's ready to commit to a direction.
As for Xbox Player Voice itself? I'm a huge fan of this new forum that Microsoft's built using its Xbox Cloud Gaming feedback system as a foundation, and I think it's going to serve as a crucial platform for the Xbox team to engage with players as it works to make Xbox "where the world plays." It's already quite robust, and I expect it will only get better with time.
What do you think of the new Xbox Player Voice forum? I'd love to hear your thoughts, so share them below and vote in our poll.
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