Call of Duty’s Metacritic celebration highlights a bizarre Xbox problem — nobody is reviewing games on Xbox

Infinity Ward is celebrating some glowing reviews right now for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, which has hit a comfortable 89 on PlayStation and 86 on PC. By extension, it should be a slam dunk for Microsoft, given that they, you know, own Activision.

Unfortunately, there is one glaring omission from that Metacritic infographic, and it's Xbox.

If you head over to Metacritic, the lack of mention of an Xbox score makes sense immediately. The Xbox Series X version of Modern Warfare 4 doesn't have an official Metascore at all. It sits at a bleak "tbd" based on a grand total of two critic reviews.

So Microsoft owns Activision. Microsoft owns Call of Duty. Yet when it comes time to aggregate critical acclaim for the biggest blockbuster under its banner, there aren't enough critic reviews on Xbox to even generate a baseline score. It's not a good look, is it?

I'm not going to lay blame with "Xbox tax" on this one, don't worry; the reality is far more banal. Platform preference isn't to blame here, but the review process itself on Xbox is unnecessarily painful, and Xbox needs to do something about it.

Game keys vs Whitelisting shenanigans

Most gaming journalists and creators will be offered a choice of platforms on which to review a game, and they choose the path of least resistance. That path is generally PC/Steam, where you get a simple game code or access to a pre-release beta branch, or PlayStation, where you can redeem a code and you're good to go.

On Xbox, however, the process is more convoluted. You have to give your Xbox Live Device ID, which is buried within developer and system settings, to a PR company and wait for the publisher to manually whitelist your individual hardware before a code or build will even register.

Many of us are working against tight embargoes under an influx of game releases, especially in this absolute storm of releases that is Q4, and any extra steps to take can mount up in the inbox. Even if someone wants to cover the Xbox version of a game, convenience almost always dictates picking Steam or PS5 instead.

Xbox had the forethought to take over everyone's Xbox dashboard for Modern Warfare 4, but not to secure any kind of Metacritic presence.

Even Xbox outlets struggle (like us!)

Here at Windows Central, we obviously try to play within the Xbox ecosystem, yet even we constantly run into this wall. Case in point: for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 specifically, our own review was conducted on PC simply because that was the platform offered for the official review event.

When covering major releases or updates, PC and Steam codes are almost always pushed first because beta branches make distribution painless for publishers. Meanwhile, getting early access on Xbox feels a bit like doing my tax self-assessment.

Some titles, like Gears of War: E-Day, have had a healthier ratio. It was accessible through an insider build on the dashboard and much easier, so yes of course while it wasn't on PlayStation, we've a healthier skew of 87 Xbox reviews to 83 PC reviews. This isn't the norm, though.

When reviewing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered, I had to start my playthrough on Steam and wait a few days for the Xbox whitelisting to be completed before I could switch platforms (thank heavens for cross-save). I could have waited, sure, but when you're on a tight schedule, time is a luxury you don't have. I've had this exact same problem when checking out DLC for Goat Simulator 3, too.

When an outlet specifically dedicated to covering Xbox has to resort to playing pre-release games on PC just to hit embargo, what chance does the average reviewer at a multiplatform outlet have? Why would a critic jump through extra technical hoops for Xbox when a PS5 or Steam key is sitting in their inbox ready to download with a single click?

Xbox needs to fix this early access issue

Xbox already faces an uphill battle when it comes to hardware market share and media coverage. But allowing its own pre-release access to remain this cumbersome is self-harming to the brand.

When publishers don't distribute Xbox codes efficiently, fewer outlets review Xbox builds. When fewer outlets review Xbox builds, Metacritic scores sit at "TBD." This, in turn, creates a public perception that nobody is playing or caring about the platform, even when the game in question is published by Microsoft itself. Gamers looking for reviews may purchase on the platform where more coverage exists. It quickly becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If Microsoft wants Xbox to remain a primary platform for game reviews and media coverage, it needs to make access to its platform for reviews much easier. Until redeeming an early-access Xbox code is as simple as punching in a key on PlayStation or Steam, we’re going to keep seeing Xbox-owned games celebrated everywhere except on Xbox.

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