Microsoft wants to hear from game developers that might be skipping Xbox, or those already building games using the company’s developer tools. The software maker is expanding its Xbox Research team to include the community of game developers, seeking feedback directly from developers about tools, support, and the overall pain points of the Xbox platform.
A new program, much like Microsoft’s Xbox Insider one, is now open to all members of game studios, not just technical employees. “Typically, it takes a lot of people to make and ship a game, including marketing, user research, artists, audio, PMs, community managers, and more,” says Dr. Deborah Hendersen, principal user researcher for Xbox. “We want to hear from everyone who works on games or helps support game studios because if we can make your life easier, it makes gaming better.”
While the program will gather feedback about tools, performance tuning, debugging utilities, and plenty of other aspects of game development, it’s also designed for input from game studios that aren’t shipping games on Xbox. “If you aren’t on Xbox, we’d love to know why,” says Hendersen. “And honestly, if you are using our competitor’s products, you probably have a great perspective we could learn from!”
Microsoft’s outreach for direct game developer feedback comes amid some noticeable delays for third-party releases on Xbox. Baldur’s Gate 3 launched on Xbox several months after it first debuted on PS5, because of technical issues developing for the Xbox Series S. Capcom revealed last month that its two new fighting game collections — Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics and Capcom Fighting Collection 2 — will come to Xbox in 2025 after “technical discussions” with Microsoft.
The developers of Enotria: The Last Song also publicly announced an “indefinite delay” to the Xbox version of the game last month, after struggling with Microsoft’s game review process. The studio’s statement about the issues caught the attention of Xbox chief Phil Spencer, who reached out to the team to help resolve the situation.
Microsoft would obviously prefer to receive this type of feedback from game developers privately, to avoid potential headlines about game developers skipping the platform due to technical issues, tooling, or even processes. Hopefully this expansion of Xbox Research will help address the pain points that prevent some game developers from releasing Xbox games.