There are zero Xbox first-party exclusives nominated for The Game Awards

Game of the Year (GOTY) will be announced on December 7, 2023, at The Game Awards. While lots of the games were released this year, only six were chosen to be worthy of receiving the title of GOTY. However, none of them were first-party exclusive titles from Xbox.

Xbox did have a good year with releases like Hi-Fi Rush, Starfield, and Forza Motorsport. However, none of those quite cut the mark against other contenders for GOTY 2023. The main criteria that are seen for the Game of the Year category are innovation and how it performs during gameplay.

Hi-Fi Rush did turn out to be great when it comes to innovation and gameplay performance which allowed it to be nominated for many categories for The Game Awards. However, when compared to other nominees for the GOTY, it doesn’t fare well as they have gone further and beyond.

As for Forza Motorsport, the game only improved upon handling and graphics for the racing franchise, while bringing nothing new to the platter. Which made the game not impressive for being a contender for the award.

The hope for Xbox was Starfield which disappointed many players after its release and bad optimization. Moreover, the game wasn’t as innovative as No Man’s Sky which provided a satisfactory space exploration. On the other hand, Starfield failed to create a similar satisfactory experience.

Why wasn’t Starfield nominated for GOTY at The Game Awards 2023 despite being an AAA title?

Among all these games Starfield had the highest chance of being nominated as it was an AAA title. The concept of the game is unique as it implements RPG mechanics in a space exploration setting. Yet with all the positives, the game ended up disappointing for various reasons like bad optimization, accessibility, poor narrative, and gameplay.

Furthermore, the game wasn’t as great as it was advertised and had a lot of bugs as well. The nomination for GOTY requires a game to be innovative and fun to experience. However, due to a lack of such qualities, the game was left out of the top-tier list.