Recent Xbox Store Survey Expanded Feedback

Just some of my personal thoughts from a non insider commoner after a survey, wanting to give a voice to it and accelerate any likeminded commentary.

Greetings

I just wanted to reach out and expand on a few things from the recent survey. I think there were some great questions for improving the store.



Praises

• I really like some of the recent changes on the UI development and navigation. They are visually appealing and intuitive.
• Seeing the revolving sales is refreshing and often highlights new game ideas I hadn’t considered – such as the farming theme this week
• I appreciate the transparency with % off full price shown right under the games, along with the end date of the sale so I can plan around my purchase or let a friend know without having to look it up myself.
• Console and accessory sales right from the console store was an interesting addition (although I don’t think its competing with Amazon at this time) Its great to see officially endorsed products that I know will work with my system.
• I love the option to buy as a gift right from the console! This is often how I get games for my son and saves me the hassle of giving him complicated codes from third party websites. Also if a friend is on deployment I can hook him up with a sale, and he can pay me back later.
• Wishlist makes it really easy to bookmark a game I might want later on sale
• Listing the game capabilities, technical specs, and X/S status is well portrayed in the game profile and gives a great breakdown of what is – or isn’t possible in the title.
• The ability to browse on both phone and console is extremely valuable, great work with all that synchronization

Improvements

• The Xbox review system is a mess. I think you know it, part of the reason for the survey I’m sure
  • Full of jokes, meme type reviews, rage rants, or fanboy dialog
    • The helpful/unhelpful thumbs up system may be a good way to filter real reviews from trash but still doesn’t currently help much
• I can’t depend on it for a realistic view, nor a purchase opinion, Sometimes people use the reviews as a cry for help for developers to fix a broken feature
  • What about that makes me want to buy the game?
• There are times when a game launches with bugs, but the recent patches make a huge improvement. This unfortunately doesn’t always shine through the negativity.
• On the flipside there are completely broken, independently verified trash heap games that have a suspect amount of 5 star reviews. Breeds a bit of untrustworthiness
• If I was to review a game, it wouldn’t be using a controller to type 1000 characters. I wouldn’t be opposed to a reward system through the Xbox app, similar to GamePass Quests, for providing honest and detailed reviews
• Consider a rating system for reviewers, building a trusted network of consistent reviewers similar to Google Playstore top reviewers, Amazon Top 500 reviewer, etc
• Typing reviews through the app would be easier, and opting into a notification system would remind willing participants which games they haven’t reviewed
  • Don’t ask right away though players should spend time (hours) in the game before being asked for feedback, it’s only right.
• Float reviews from friends or followed gamers to the top!
  • It would also be nice to see an opt in feature that shows when another opted friend recently purchased a game – maybe I’d want to buy it to play with them. It could pop up in the feed like “XYZ just purchased The Division!” and I could then go look at the store and see what its about and maybe jump in too.
  • Maybe consider adding Metacritic scores. The only reason I say this is because they have a network of industry analysts along with multiplatform player reviews conveniently averaged accordingly. Most informed buyers would look here anyway but that may possibly take the store control away from Microsoft as a downside.
    • What if the game was terrible on PC, but the Xbox reviews were solid? Metacritic would allow cross-platform comparison.
• Might be fun to see the top 3 rarest achievements for that particular game off to the side as a sort of bounty inspiration
• PATCH NOTES!!! This is direly needed. There should be a way to view a chronological changelog right from the store regarding a game’s patch history
  • What if the feature being review bombed was recently patched?
  • I could tab over to the Game Patches and see “oh look, the dev team has addressed an issue on the series X that was causing xyx to happen” maybe Ill buy the game now
    • Instead of having to look them up on independent websites..
• Along with patch notes – known issues that are being investigated. In the spirit of full transparency, maybe I’d want to see that the game is still supported before my purchase
• This may not necessarily be a store issue, but hear me out: X/S space is at a premium. (including expanded Seagate)
  • When I download a game to my Series X – I want everything it was built for to be available to me. This often means musical chairs with the hard drive. We need an option to purchase and select which drive it goes to without just relying on our “preferred drive settings”
  • I don’t want to waste optimized space on unoptimized games, and if a new update brings X/S features to a game I already own, I want to know as a notification!
  • There was a recent update coming to the app I’ve heard about, but a hard drive manager where games can be click-and-drag moved without being on the console would be so helpful.
    • That way I can restack the hard drives while I’m out and get in the games right away without tedious maneuvers through in the in console menus.

Overall I am so pleased with this team and the progress made with the store. I really appreciate all the hours of hard work put into making Xbox the best place to play. I spent time on these suggestions, I hope they don’t go to junk mail. This is coming from a dedicated Xbox player since generation one, I am always looking for ways to provide feedback and streamline the experiences for everyone. As a soon to be medically retired veteran, I have logged thousands of hours on my game library and find it to be so therapeutic. I have convinced many of my Navy counterparts to get into gaming to combat PTSD and stress, it’s great to see the Xbox team pouring so much into the future. I am excited to see where you take it and please don’t hesitate to reach out if you ever want feedback for anything! I always have ideas.

Chris

XBL: Seas Knots

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