They're great, I have a particular fondness of the Forza Horizon series. But they are so few and far between in a contest of exclusivity against Nintendo and Sony that it's a little depressing when you think of Microsoft's output, with all the IP's they own and have bought out and see how little they've actually done. Even PS5 has far more exclusives in its first years than Microsoft has managed to come out with in the same amount of time.
I had Xbox, the OG, and never owned a GameCube or PS2 (I had a lot of envy for those console owners though growing up, so many games I did wish to play.) I remember when OG Xbox had a tonne of franchises exclusive to Xbox that, for the most part, were dead and buried come the 360 era. They were far more experimental and all in back then than they are now even with the sheer amount of IP they are buying up like the Disney of gaming.
These days, most people just see them as Forza, Gears and Halo with Halo mired in controversy and being driven into the ground unfortunately due to it being consistently mishandled. Even though sometimes they throw out a Pentiment or a Hi-Fi Rush to praise, it is few and far-between. I own all consoles but I cannot remember a gen that I personally felt Xbox to not be third place in (Wii U gen comes to mind where I put Nintendo in third place for once) in comparison to what their competitors were releasing. Even PS3 gen, I look and whilst people may praise 360 for the exclusives back then, I find it pales in comparison to Sony and Nintendo. The Last of Us, Uncharted and Metal Gear Solid IV alone to me ran circles around their output, those were just the obvious picks, they were just so above and beyond and cinematic in ways that you could see exactly where the future of single player experiences were heading and what could be accomplished. The WII gameplay wise was just innovative back then and a fun time, packed with iterative experiences and a list of exclusives that were far more memorable to me, even Metroid Prime 3 to me is a better game than Halo 3 and Reach which would be a controversial opinion but I love Metroid and Prime, it engaged me far more and has stuck in my memory.
It's not console warring or anything, I'm basing it off personal experience. I look fondly on the OG Xbox era, I guess just off of childhood, but also they had a far more diverse list of games than even now, they had nothing to lose really as a newcomer so they gave it their all and the results were more memorable than what I saw from their output later in life. And even from that era, I would still place them third because I knew exactly what PS2 and GameCube had on them and I would go back and love the heck out of those games later on. I got PS3 and Wii after and haven't looked back despite playing Xbox as well, ultimately it's never grasped me and seeing the state of Series X just sort of saddens me. Starfield is the only thing I'm excited about at this stage.
I have a lot to look forward to from Nintendo and Sony, when it comes to strictly games, not hardware, they haven't failed me yet, there's a lot of games with variety and they're consistent every year, there's always something that grabs my attention and makes me go "this is my game of the year." I haven't felt that way with Xbox really for a long time and even with games like Hi-Fi-Rush, I know it won't be my top game to release this year and by year's end I know it won't even be in my Top 3, not even Forza Horizon 5 was and I enjoyed my time with it.
Dunno, I have my tastes, Sony and Nintendo align with them more often than not and are pretty consistent with pleasing me.
with the OG XBox development times where still short enough, that going around and getting studios on board worked rather well.
During the XBOne days they made some bad decisions, had studios implode, and since game dev now takes half a decade and more, the games from the new aquisitions are simply not ready yet. Its a handfull of badly managed years and bad luck that lead them to where they are now.
+ them letting Nintendo have some (Ori, Cuphead, outer worlds, hellblade) and generally all of their games being Console + PC from the start removes the feeling of "exclusivity" from many games they have.
Minecraft is theirs, but gets pushed everywhere. Psychonauts also released everywhere, even if Double Fien is a Microsoft studio, but the game was already anounced for all Platforms before the buy out.
Hi-Fi Rush seems like a great game, and is also exclusive. They actually have a ton of "non sequel" games going through that list, Pentiment, Grounded, Avowed, Everwild, As Dusk Falls, Hi-Fi Rush, Sea of Thieves, Tell ne Why, Bleeding Edge, Ara: History Untold.
Many of their games are not fit for "character based marketing" like many nintendo ips (you wont find plushies of their characters...except master chief). Sony is going the "cinematic" route.
Microsoft reminds me... of a big budget variant of general PC gaming from the 90ties and early 00s.
It has its audience, but a big part of that audience... is on pc, where they also release.
Personally that type of game never really interested me. I was not a big activision/blizard fan (over the years they threw out most of the interesting ips in my opinion and got worse), and also not a big bethesta fan (no interest in Fallout/Elders scrolls, only somewhat interested in doom...), Halo always felt like the most generic space marine scifi series. Never understood the appeal.
But then there are games i would like to check out:
Pentiment
hellblade 2
everwild (could be interesting)
hi-fi rush
grounded
psychonauts 2
but if i want to check them out, then i would buy an entry level gaming pc.
I have to many games i never played (thx Epic game store... im lazy with checking it out, but even with semi regular getting the games i have 100 games, and probably 50 in steam)
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Actually... all this reminded me, i really should maybe buy a gaming pc...
Batman Arcam Series, Bioshock Remastered, Control, Death Stranding, Dishonored, Kerbal space program, metro (both), tomb raider trilogy, sable, saints row 4, redout, shenmue 3, superhot, vampyr, watch dogs, Prey, steeep, soma, wolfenstein the new order, yoka laylee the impossible lair... all just waiting to be played.
Why should i buy an X-Box then.
this Also reminds me, i tried playing Doom 2016 (and Metro Redux) on the switch...
i really really cant. Metro was just to slow in parts for that small screen, maybe it works better with mouse controlls. (still a great port)
Doom... i wished so much for a wider FoV. Its to narrow. Thats my only gripe. I will finish this game, butony when i get a pc, to change the FoV. I really hope that Metroid Prime has not the same problem for me.....
