
Over the years, we've seen various games that attempt to tap into the "easy achievements" market and serve as a simple way to inflate your gamerscore, and that's a perfectly legitimate tactic in some cases.
Xbox does have rules about this kind of thing though, and in their latest clamp down, they've seemingly targeted "triple-stack" games - a situation where a developer releases multiple versions of their titles on the Xbox Store.
These are usually split into Xbox One, Series X|S and PC versions, each with their own achievements. However, according to an email to developers seen by True Achievements, this will seemingly no longer be allowed in the future.
"Going forward, releasing identical games that "don't provide distinct experiences" will violate section 10.1 Distinct Function & Value; Accurate Representation of Microsoft Store policy."
Apparently, the email says that if developers want to release multiple identical versions of their games for different systems, they'll either need to support Xbox Play Anywhere or take advantage of a feature called "game binding" in which various things like achievements and save progress are linked together.
If all of this comes to fruition, the result should be far less indie games with "(Xbox One)" and "(Xbox Series X|S)" in their names - ultimately leading to reduced clutter and a chance for more new releases to be in the spotlight. It also means there'll be less potential gamerscore to go around, but more legitimate ways to earn it!
If you're still confused, you can see some examples of so-called "triple stack" games in the video below.