During the latest episode of the Xbox Two podcast, Windows Central journalist Jez Corden shed some light on why Xbox has rejected certain anime-style games like Gal Gun from releasing on its platform in recent years: “I've been speaking to a lot of figures, past and present, about why certain games have been banned on Xbox. There's a conspiracy theory among fans of a particular genre of games, notably anime-style dating simulations, because Microsoft has had this almost notorious app gap. PlayStation has these games, Nintendo has them, and Steam has them, but Xbox doesn't.” “The community has had this conspiracy theory that Microsoft was blocking these games. I actually found out that this probably isn't as conspiratorial as some people might expect. Apparently, there was somebody at Xbox who hated anime-style games and had previously been declining them. This is something I've heard, so I took it with a pinch of salt because it's just industry rumour.” “But I think times have changed. Leadership has changed hands, and some of those games that were previously blocked have now mysteriously started getting approved. So, yeah, times have definitely changed.” “And I think you said it was a one-man power trip. It sounds like it was, yeah.” Many indie developers, especially Asian ones, have reported difficulties getting their games approved by Microsoft for release on Xbox. Just recently, an Xbox port of the 2025 indie game Seek was almost cancelled because of such issues. It seems like Microsoft seeks to make publishing games on Xbox less challenging for indie developers. Are there any such games you would want to see come to Xbox? #microsoft #xbox