Can XBOX Make A Comeback?

In a competition you have to try to stand out from your opponents. You must come out on top by doing something better than the rest, or innovating and bringing something completely new to the table. In the competition between PS4 and XBOX One, I find it safe to say that PS4 is making games better than XBOX One. Exclusives are simply better and come more often, and many third party games create their “best version” or give exclusive content to PlayStation. XBOX, however, has had a few unique and innovative moves lately, and here’s why I think that they have all the opportunity in the world to make a comeback and become greater than the PlayStation.

In terms of games, XBOX exclusives have two things going against them. Firstly is that they aren’t actual exclusives. Every game that comes out for the XBOX One is also available on Windows 10 PC. While this is a great idea to get games out to the public and create hype, less people are inclined to purchase an XBOX One if they have the ability to play it on a PC. Don’t get me wrong, as someone who doesn’t care for PC gaming (look forward to a post in a couple weeks) I know there is still merit to having it be a console exclusive, but it does create a more baron ecosystem, specifically for online games. If 1 million people purchase Halo 6 on XBOX and 4 million on PC, then it will be challenging to find games (or at least a variety of games and skill level to choose from) in a smaller pool than if it was only available on XBOX and having 3 million copies purchased. The next issue I have with XBOX One exclusives is that not many of them are spectacular, and few offer experiences that interest me. Some of XBOX’s best games include a version of PlayerUnkown’s Battlegrounds which features cumbersome menus and jumpy frames, Cuphead – a game that looks cool but seems like an arcade game that gets repetitive quickly – Gears of War 4 which I got when it came out and still haven’t played and Halo 5, the worst entries in the franchise. Upcoming titles don't give me much hope either, with games like Sea Of Thieves which I don't get the hype about at all, or Crackdown 3 which seems like a budget title I would pick up in a Walmart bin for 5 dollars and regret. Sure, I can agree that while I take issue with all of these games, there is still a decent amount of quality here that some people will enjoy, but when you compare these to the exclusives of Sony or Nintendo, there is something missing here.

So now that I’ve explained why I feel Microsoft is losing the console battle, let me go into why I think they are primed for a comeback bigger than the Patriots in Super Bowl 51. As I mentioned at the top, if you can’t do something better than the opponent, innovate and bring something completely new to the table. I think that Microsoft’s ‘game pass’ is that innovation. For 12 dollars a month, you can play a vast library of games, and the new aspect is that any game coming out exclusively on XBOX One will come out on day one with game pass. This means that for the price of only 2 games per year, you can play every single exclusive title that comes out on the platform as well as the already huge library (which currently contains games such as Bioshock 1, 2, and infinite, Braid, Halo 5, Gears of War 1 through 4, Mass Effect, Limbo and more). Paying that for the old games I find myself wondering whether that would be worth it to sign up for a few months, but if XBOX can get on track and release exciting exclusive games, I’m back in.

This right here is what I personally believe is the key to them taking over Sony’s dominance. They have created an ecosystem that is ideal for gaming, now all they need to do is bring on the games. The controller is better than PlayStation, the power of the system is equivalent if not better, and if they can give us games that keep us hanging around month after month subscribed to game pass, then they will easily come out victorious.