Jason Monroe
Forget all of the power under the hood, the Xbox One X isn’t going to be a success without enough exclusive games to warrant the purchase.
Xbox One X is a bit of a beast. It completely overpowers the PS4 Pro and promises performance akin to a reasonable gaming PC. When it launches this Holiday season it will set the console benchmark for power.
It’s a shame that power isn’t everything.
We’ve written a lot about Xbox One X. Before it launched we suggested potential names, we mused about the impact the system could have on VR and considered the games that could be launched as exclusive titles (spoiler: it was a short list).
It was so short that we’ve even written about how awesome it would be if Scalebound was still in production in secret, to have an impact similar to Breath of the Wild on the Nintendo Switch launch. While that is still possible and stranger things have happened, it’s extremely unlikely to happen. Scalebound is dead, and Microsoft only has a handful of Xbox One exclusive games that could justify the Xbox One X. The truth hurts.
The Xbox One is significantly behind the PS4 in sales, even the Xbox One X is unlikely to close the gap. Sony just has too much of a lead to consider a comeback anything other than a wishful thinking for those in the green camp.
But, why is Sony so far ahead? I think the answer lies in their formidable collection of exclusive games.
Horizon Zero Dawn, Nioh, Uncharted 4, The Last Guardian, Yakuza 0, Bloodborne, and don’t get me started about that The Last of Us Remaster.
And, that’s before we even get to beautiful games like Gravity Rush 2 and Persona 5.
As a PC gamer, aside from Breath of the Wild, the PS4 has the collection of games that make me consider picking up a console for the first time in years.
Microsoft has its own collection of exclusives, sure. Halo 5, Gears of War 4 and Sunset Overdrive are a few notable mentions, but it must be said that many of the Xbox One’s best “exclusive” games also seem to cross over to the PC too.
Sony has heavily invested in exclusive video games for those who purchase their systems, which is the key reason they lead the market in terms of sales. Microsoft should have saved the hundreds of millions of dollars they have spent designing and building Xbox One X and should have instead focused on making games that would make Sony and Nintendo fans envious enough to pick up an Xbox One.
Without the exclusive games, Xbox One X is little more than an overpowered beast with slightly better-looking versions of games readily available on existing systems. The most hardcore of gamers may consider picking one up, but those happy with the already incredible graphics being displayed by their existing consoles aren’t going to have enough of an incentive to part with their money.
Microsoft needs games. Power isn’t everything.
Project Scorpio isn’t going to be a success because no exclusives….. ok then. Glad to know!! I guess the PS4 pro is a failure too then?? You know we all could’ve saved some cash by just reading your column, and I’ll be sure to let all my Xbox buddies that Project Scorpio will suck because no exclusives have been announced so forget it, just keep playing your S model. David Blane called and he says he wants his psychic powers back. I await your next article on why PS4 pro is a bomb ok?? No?? No article on that?? Somebody’s fanboy is showing. Hey Microsoft, scrap that new console to make some more exclusives because no one wants the worlds most powerful console anymore and it’s just going to fail!!! Thanks for your teachings today Videogame Jesus. Thou art the most retarted in the kingdom and we should all bow in sympathy for Quasimodo, author of the crap we wasted time reading!! Good day and get out!!
Thanks for outing me as the PS4 fanboy that I am.
Except, y’know…I don’t own a PS4. Or a Switch. As I mentioned in the article, I have a PC, and on researching the exclusives that could launch with the Scorpio I had to scrape together 3 games. That doesn’t look great for Xbox in general – and a quick Google shows that this Videogame Jesus is not the only one thinking it.
Sony has managed to acquire a lot of fantastic exclusive games, and I just wish that Microsoft had focused on getting more great exclusive games than making a console that still can’t compete with my 4-year-old PC. It is the games that matter and I wish there were more great Xbox One games in the world to encourage me to pick up a Microsoft console.
Thanks for the comment.
Burned!! 🙂
great reply, you can feel his pain. it’s hard for xbox right now
it’s sad that people can’t be critical without being labeled a fanboy.
that being said…the article is spot on. Microsoft just seems to be busy in all the wrong places. Instead of creating exclusive games with great content they spend their time buying up timed exclusive deals (like tomb raider), making the most powerful console (which I’m sure they did mainly for marketing purposes…wait for the commercials) and wasting time on 360 backwards compatibility.
Odds are the Scorpio will be nothing more than a short term success.
Great talking points. Great article. Thanks Mr. Santina
LaughingAndfarting….That had to be one of the strangest comments I’ve read. I honestly cannot tell if you were being serious. The PS4 Pro didn’t need exclusives. PS4 was already a more capable platform to begin with than the Xbox One. It already had a slew of great releases that include exclusives, along with sporting superior third party titles that run better. I used to be a huge microsoft fanboy in the 360 days. I loved my Xbox Live, cross-game chat, the incredible work done by indie developers….But most importantly, I loved my exclusives, We had a Bungie, Microsoft had acquired RARE, and there were all these possibilities looming about as to what they’d do with them. Gears was in full throttle and showcased how gorgeous games could look on the platform, and how competent the netcode could be with the Unreal engine on the brand new console, Forza was a wonderful title. Games like Condemned, Kameo, Perfect Dark, Project Gotham Racing, Perfect Dark, and others showed just how robust an environment the new 360 would end up being.
Sony has stolen everything from Microsoft. Indie developers love them. Jonathon Blow adores his time with Sony. Team MEAT prefers sony over microsoft, (Super Meat Boy) so does PlayDead (who did Limbo). Microsoft became incredibly greedy with their indie scene. they demanded that the developers pay a few for even the smallest of patches, and that the game be reevaluated every single time. Sony did not do this. They welcomed developers to add features and continue to work on the game after release.
Bungie has gone multiplatform, and 343 Industries hasn’t quite captured the charm of the earlier titles, RARE turned into nothing, making mostly Kinect games, and a sub-par Banjo title. Gears is being handled by the Coalition, which yet again, doesn’t compare even remotely to what Cliffy B had done with the series.
But let’s ignore those issues, and look at where we are now.
Sony had one of the busiest few months I’ve ever seen as a gamer of 30 years. And Microsoft had nothing to say about it. They just kept talking about Scorpio. Early on Microsoft banked on timed exclusives early on, and thought that the xbox one would work beautifully by interfacing with your cable box. No used games, and 24 hour DRM.
Microsoft, in other areas of the company, has been doing incredible things. Windows 10 is better than ever, The Surface line-up continues to rival beautiful design and damned good performance, and are making their competitors look like fools.
Hell, Nintendo has had more relevance with the Switch, and their own commitment to more third party support and more releases. Nintendo has outshone Microsoft lately. Nintendo.
So, What the author of this article was saying, is that Sony has done right their fans, they’ve released a bunch of awesome games, and fans love them more for it. And with titles like Death Stranding, Ni No Kuni 2, Days Gone, Last of Us: Part 2 making their way to the platform, they continue to show good will.
Microsoft decided that the right answer was to buy Minecraft for 2.5 billion dollars, cancel Scalebound, and continue to emasculate their line-up by giving away their ips to developers that are unproven rather than buying the studios and going to the Nth degree to make them feel welcome.
Microsoft releasing a powerful system will do nothing for the. The elite among of their fans will pick it up, but most have learned by now that without much to look forward to, it’s a stupid proposition, and they hope enough people don’t figure that out before swiping their credit cards.
Alex, you are completely on point. Great commentary! Loved it!
Grownup gaming. Well, I’m well over 40 and I don’t see myself stopping gaming anytime soon.
Bookmarked.
I really appreciate that, thank you.
Again Microsoft do a disastrous wrong decisions on the Scorpio show a potent machine but whit out games that is the hard of the machine what is important on a console are the games and until now there no games that compare to the line that the Ps4 have for 2017-2018 this is equal to me not buying it unless they show a convincing line of games on E3 and even they showing the games I have to cross the fingers that they do not cancel the majority of them it is obvious that I lost the faith on Xbox (Microsoft) promises.
“But, why is Sony so far ahead? I think the answer lies in their formidable collection of exclusive games.”
Sony is so far ahead because MS did a terrible job marketing the X1 when it launched, not because of exclusives. Sony didn’t have shit for exclusives until this year. All they had was Uncharted 4, Bloodborne, and The Last of Us, which is a PS3 remake. Until this year MS had Ryse, Dead Rising 3, Sunset Overdrive, Quantum Break, Halo 5, Gears of War 4, and all the Forza games.
I don’t think you’re understanding. Regardless if they are PS3 remasters or even PS2 remasters… you can’t play them anywhere else but on the Playstation Platform. Even the vast collection of exclusive 360 games available on the Xbox platform help Xbox One because they aren’t available anywhere else! So, yes… the Playstation had a TON of exclusives available from day one because the PS4 welcomed a ton of people that switched over and never had the chance to play some of these exclusives. Also, you missed a few of the games that came out . I’ve provided a list to show you how incorrect you are on those being the only games that were out prior to 2017. Till this day, the games that you named for Xbox… are still the only exclusives Xbox has (without including the BC lineup) and it obviously isn’t enough. So yes, in comparison… Sony does have a formidable collection of exclusive games that people find enough reason to buy a PS4 over the Xbox One. One thing we can agree on is that MS did terrible at marketing the X1 but where the agreement changes is that they will continue to have a hard time even with the most powerful console as it will only play the same things we can play on PC and Xbox One. Nothing exclusive to Scorpio giving reason to buy a new expensive unit unless you’re hardcore. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PlayStation_4_games
Laughing so hard at the XBone fanboys. So many were touting the Scorpio to be the end-all of all consoles. It will have the latest everything. Guess what? Micro$oft had to do cutback on the parts again. No it won’t have the next gen Ryzen CPU or Vega GPU. You’ll be getting the same Polaris GPU and Jaguar CPU as the PS4 Pro except with a bit more speed.
That’s all. It might do some games at Native [email protected] but we’re talking about games with the graphic settings dialed down. Most times it’ll rely on some form of 4K upscaling just like the PS4 Pro. Enjoy it fanboys.
Is this some kind of joke article? I thought April 1st already passed.
Where were these articles when the ps4 launched? They had nothing great at release. Instead, what they had for the first three years were mostly indies and a few IP’s mixed in. Yet we were told it was the best place to play because it had the most power. It didn’t matter that MS was releasing quite a few exclusives though, it was all about that 1080p and where you could play the best multiplats.
It also didn’t matter when Sony engaged in delaying games, nor did it matter when sony even admitted they had a “spars” game lineup. Nope, they didn’t get flamed about all by the media. It was all forgiven because….1080p. You know, the same resolution that sony claimed would make you a better gamer?
You may claim not to be biased, but you sure has heck have fallen for the group think that’s been infecting every gaming site since the scorpio DF reveal.
“Microsoft Should Have Invested In Exclusives, Not Project Scorpio Now”
This place claims it’s for the adult gamer, well an adult should understand that a company as big as MS can do both. They can release a monster system and have games for it. Only a dense person would think that MS invested all this money into a system and not have games in the works. Common sense defeats the whole purpose of this article.
Exclusives are important, but they are not as important as you make them out to be. You’re 30 years old, yet you don’t understand the history of this industry or the consumer tendencies. Look at the sales numbers between these two companies going back to the PS2. Sony dominated that gen in a big way. Yet, despite all that success and all the great exclusives they had, they lost a number of people to the 360. The majority of gamers didn’t pass on the 360 because they wanted to stick with sony. Now look at the ps4, it gained a lot of people who were once 360 owners. People didn’t stick with MS despite having a great catalog of games only offered by them. That wasn’t enough for people going to where they thought the better place to game was.
You can even go back farther to the N64 vs PS days. The market was ready to leave behind cartridges, this mistake on Nintedo’s part cost them. All their great properties didn’t stop people from migrating over to the PS.
People will buy the better system if they believe it’s better.
In addition, look at the sales numbers of exclusives for both companies. The % is terrible(there are exceptions like Halo, UC etc) when you take into account the number of people who own a ps or x1. Less that 8% of console owners buy a given exclusive. The comparison to 3rd party sales isn’t even close. On top of that, a recent survey(I assume you’re aware of this) had graphics listed as the #1 factor that went into a game buying decision. IIRC, exclusives were far down the list.
This whole “no games” narrative is old and nothing more than defense tactic to help those who won’t buy the system feel better about the one they have. You may not be parroting it for that reason, but I would bet that is the root of why so many are banging that drum.