Former Xbox exclusives have been jumping ship to rival consoles for a few years now - from Starfield and Grounded to upcoming PS5 ports of Forza Horizon 6 and Halo: Campaign Evolved - but, now, Xbox fans are using the company's new community polling tool to tell Microsoft they don't want to share their toys.
This week, Microsoft debuted Xbox Player Voice - excuse me, ahem, XBOX Player Voice - an online page that lets players submit feedback directly and vote on community suggestions. Almost immediately, thousands of fans voted for more games to become backward-compatible, for free online play, and for physical compatibility for Project Helix.
Easily the most popular suggestion on the page was a call to bring exclusives back. "XBOX was built off of great game exclusives, you cannot sell any consoles without a reason to buy the console compared to your competition or even sending your tentpole games over to your competitor," the request reads. "BRING THEM BACK PLEASE !!!"
Upon announcement, Microsoft made clear that Player Voice "doesn't mean every piece of feedback will turn into a feature or result in change," because the company still needs to weigh every option to make sure the profit lines keep going up, "but better visibility helps close the gap between what you tell us and what you see happen next on XBOX."
Essentially, don't expect Xbox to start recalling games like Halo or Forza just because thousands of fans are upvoting an option on the site. At the same time, it's definitely not too late for Xbox to turn around.
Xbox CEO Asha Sharma said the company "will reevaluate our approach to exclusivity" just last month, and also hinted that plans were always subject to change upon taking the job as head of the gaming division.
Console exclusives are definitely still a draw for hardware, as well. Nintendo has practically built its name around games that are synonymous with the brand, and PlayStation is reportedly putting an end to its single-player games coming to PC. With Xbox hardware revenue continuing to fumble, perhaps Microsoft will go down the same route.
Xbox has changed its name and backtracked on Game Pass prices, but is it too little too late?
