It's no secret that the Xbox Store isn't perfect for finding content, especially when it comes to searching for games. At times, the search function doesn't work as intended, and you can't really find the games you want without some serious messing about. Well, the good news is that Xbox is aware of the issue, even if a fix hasn't been outlined yet.
In a Twitter thread about issues with the Xbox mobile app, one commenter forwarded some concerns about the search functionality, which we've talked about here before at Pure Xbox, and got an answer from an Xbox employee:
As you can see, Xbox's Eden Marie responded to the query, saying that the team is "very aware" of the issue. Hopefully, this means some sort of fix or improvement is on the way, although Marie didn't commit to anything here.
We've come across these issues on multiple occasions, sometimes on the console as well as the app, and we hope to see changes in the future. Xbox's dash and Store have certainly improved since the early Xbox One days, but there's definitely still room for improvement.
Have you experienced these search issues? Hoping for a fix? Let us know down below.
Comments 19
This is gen 9 and both MS and Sony mess up their stores. It's surreal. Microsoft's just never had a good search (even though they're the #2 search engine provider.) Sonys went from a broken mess that was functional to an elegant display that's not functional. And Nintendo just took Google Play and copied it. Then tried to run it on a calculator.
When they changed the app about 18 months ago the new one was instantly worse! It took a huge backwards step just because they weren't allowing you to buy stuff on the app anymore they decided to destroy the whole app and replace it with something far inferior!
Are they aware of the lack of a Store in their app?
It’s so annoying having to log in into the website every time I want to purchase something, they already had it with the previous version of the app but almost 2 years later they haven’t added it back.
You would think as they've got their very own search engine technology then this should be a breeze.
@IOI That may be to do with Apple & Google's policies on digital sales on their platform as they want a cut of the money. Same as how you can't buy Kindle books on the Amazon app either.
Listing or searching by publisher or dev team would be a benefit.
The search function on the xbox app is garbage, I usually just search the game on google (xbox "game name") and install the game using web browser on microsoft web store.
I couldn't even find a game one time. Ended up contacting support over it.
@IOI @PhileasFragg Yeah, I'm pretty sure it has to do with the digital store cut on iOS and/or Google Play. Like XB and PS's own digital stores those stores take like a 30% cut, and we know from the whole Fortnite debacle, that that includes IAP sales, so when you bought, say, AC Origins on the app Apple/Google, was taking 30% just for the privilege of letting you buy on their interface. So on a $60 game, Apple/Google got $18 just for letting you buy it on their OS. MS/Sony got $18 for their platform, MS/Sony got another $10 (or is it $15 now?) for the platform license, so even if it was $10 for platform license it means Ubi got a whopping $14 for each sale, pre-tax.
That's what Epic was suing Apple for, the idea that Apple shouldn't get 30% of sales of a purchase inside an app that's literally just a shopping app. I honestly don't know how Amazon, Walmart, etc handle that. You cant tell me Amazon is giving up 30% in all sales on their app. IDK what the differences is, but I'm assuming there's some difference in Apple/Google's terms about digital content purchased versus physical goods to be shipped.
I doubt you'll ever see shopping for digital goods in an app/play store app ever again. People keep telling me the PS Store app lets you buy in the app. I'm not sure how it's working for them. For me it lets me add to my cart, but if I go to check out tells me I need to check out from a web browser, so it seems like the same issue for them.
On one hand, Google/Apple are just doing exactly what MS/Sony are doing in taking a 30% cut off their digital store, which isn't so different from shopping centers and malls that take 1-5% of receipt sales. OTOH PS/XB are closed ecosystems with specific software, not general purpose OSes, and the idea of an OS maker taking a 30% cut of everything you use their OS to buy doesn't sit right. Imagine if MS just took 30% of everything you buy online while on a Windows PC. We'd hit a 30% additional inflation just feeding a Microsoft tax and the government would slam them down in weeks.
I wish somebody other than Epic brought that lawsuit. They just blew it so badly.
Searches in app for "Dark Souls". Top 10 results
Dark Souls 2, 3 don't even feature and that's one of the BETTER searches. It really should be this hard to search game title, description, and related games with a weighting factor.
But Eden Marie is on the case! So I have faith, she usually goes above and beyond and gets problems sorted right.
@themightyant BING DIED
@NEStalgia It's the second largest website search engine in the west... it's just that Google has around a 91% market share.
They really need to fix this though!
@themightyant It.....was......a Souls reference.........
That said, I actually do use bing. Wouldn't touch Google search with a 1000 foot pole unless I absolutely have to which is only a rare necessity.
Player mode tags are also incredibly dodgy in the Xbox store. For example if you select the "xbox local multipayer (2-4)" tag in a game to produce a list of other games with that tag you'll get a partial list, with many games with the tag omitted for no reason whatsoever, and exploring that tag on the console store or the web-browser store produces different results as well.
It’s not just the search, the whole interface is confusing AF. I just picked up a Xbox X and holy hell is it all confusing. PS is logical and simple. Took me a day just to work out how to see hard drive space and uninstall a game. And what’s with this Groups thing? I have to manually add each game I’ve download to a group? WTF. It’s all so messy and the interface is ugly.
They need to fix this. With both turtles and blade runner recently, I still can’t find them using the Xbox store on the Xbox here in the UK.
That’s completely ridiculous. I shouldn’t have to jump through hoops and log into a browser on another device to purchase the biggest game releases that week. It’s crazy.
"The team" has been aware of the issue ever since they revamped the app however long ago. We're half way through 2022 now, like how much longer is it going to take?
On x1 before getting gamepass, it was impossible to find Shredder's Revenge. I have no idea why but things like this need fixing.
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