Here’s the thing… the Bethesda/Zenimax acquisition rocked us. Xbox’s transparency and communication has been exceptional in many ways. Xcloud launched recently, and in many ways the future looks incredibly bright, even with the entrance of Amazon in the market looming.
Here’s the thing though- I of course preordered the X, and am looking forward to next gen gaming mostly for the SSD improvements. I just rewatched them Sony conference, and man they have such big hitters in the exclusive department, especially upcoming. Spider Man, Demons Souls, Ratchet, Kena, Deathloop, and quite a few more just in the next few months. It’s an absolute killer lineup, and as much as I love the future of Xbox things like a revamped and largely dead Gears 5 and Tactics aren’t exactly moving the needle for me.
Obviously the box has a lot of hype for it and I believe both consoles will be a huge success. I just wish Xbox had done a better job at securing some upcoming content, as most of what I’ve seen from their studios scream 2022 to me. Am I alone in this?
Yeah, I think even with the acquisition we’re going to be in a drought for a bit. Though if something like Starfield manages to hit in 2021 that would be a pretty big deal.
I’m fairly firm in the opposite opinion. I’ve seen nothing from Sony that has wow’d me. My childhood favorite RPG styles are better served on the switch. The co op games aren’t there (from Sony). And any outliers I can think of are multiplatform.
Xbox future line up feels more diverse and interesting to me. From a content point of view it’s either subjective (“good/bad”) or volume. At this point, Xbox has more announced. So for me its a better choice beyond just the QOL improvement. QOL improvements that have yet to be vetted by Sony (unless I missed it) rather than alluded to (in spec leaks or tech demos that don’t equal game play).
I think it’s very possible. It’s been in active development for 5 years now. Which is longer than fallout 3, Skyrim, and fallout 4. Also both fallout 4 and 76 both where revealed and launch in the same year. Bethesda said a month or 2 ago they would show starfield next year and since they like to reveal and launch in the same year…
By holiday 2021 it will have had 6 years of dev time. And add in the fact that they don’t have to polish the Ps5 version since it likely doesn’t exist anymore.
Bethesda COULD have 2 more games for next year. Machine games has 2 teams that have been on 3 year cycles. They are about due. Also Arkane has two teams. They have said that death loop is being made exclusively by the dishonored team. Prey shipped almost 3.5 years ago. So their next game COULD be out next year.
I think they do, but I’ll go for Xbox anyway, as I don’t have enough money for both consoles at the moment nor do I see the point of having both of them from the very beginning of the Gen.
Lifetime future of xbox series consoles looks very bright and shiny, but it’s immediate future is cloudy regarding exclusives, so this first year looks so barren. If I had one X instead of one s I’d refrain from buying xsx at launch, but this way I’ll do it, if I hopefully manage to find it
I think they can coast through 2021 and 2022 with Game Pass and the Series S but they better get a lot of third party content on GP fast
Aside Halo Infinite 2021 and most 2022 may be a potential blind spot for MS but 2023 when the cadence starts it’ll likely be non stop content plus they’ll probably have like 30+ studios by then
Yeah, their first year looks thin. However, unless some of the supposed studios they bought have games ready early 2021 there isn’t much hey really can do. It is what it is.
Hellblade 2, everwild, at least 1 forza game, possibly Wolfenstein team game, prey team game, starfield. When do you expect these games? 2022 will probably be Microsoft’s most stacked year ever. Especially if starfield doesn’t hit in 2021.
There might be something to that, as Bethesda is pretty unusual in how they reveal titles. They usually try to reveal and have them out in a much shorter amount of time than almost any other publisher.
Also, even though FO76 didn’t do well, I always got the vibe that the team behind that wasn’t gigantic. Felt more like a side project and venture into online multiplayer for their next titles.
Same here. As cool as demons souls looks, I can’t justify purchasing a system for that and I feel as Xbox will be main console once again.
The delay happened with halo, it was for the best in terms of the franchise and I have high hopes for it. I don’t have huge issues with nothing big dropping this year, but I feel like 2021 needs to be the year they start trickling in games.
I feel like in a couple of years Microsoft will be in an incredible cadence, as well as having substantial improvements to Xcloud. I’m not asking for 2007 all over again but it would be nice if they were able to stagger a couple of larger releases.
Flight Sim could do a great job with helping to fill that void as well.
Ya machine games and Arkane are both deep into unannounced games. Go look at machine’s release schedule since they started. They definitely have something cookin.
Starfield is super deep in development.
That’s at least 3 big games that should be out no later than holiday 2022. I would bet at least 1 of those is 2021.
I mean… “More” will always be better than “fewer”. That said, there’s a lot of exclusives I’m excited for. The Falconeer, The Artful Escape, CrossfireX, Second Extinction, Bright Memory Infinite, The Gunk, Dark Tide, PSO2: New Gensys, and of course Halo. I’m gonna be just fine.
My understanding is FO76 was a smaller title by Bethesda Austin (formerly Battlecry) overseen by BGS Maryland. That said, Todd said every Zenimax studio worked on it, but whether that means all hands on deck or Todd shot the shit in a Tokyo bar with Mikami and asked how to make the Mole Rats scarier is beyond me.
We know Starfield has been in active development for years. We also know they have done a massive engine overhaul and I think we didn’t even see the results of that in FO76 (tons of pre-existing assets, downgraded visuals to accomodate online, etc. Even if it was technically 16 times the detail before downgrade it didn’t show). We also know Starfield has a brand new animation engine (Finally!) and photogrammetry.
I think if it’s ready for 2021 it will come out and I doubt Phil would have fought as hard to bring Zenimax in if it wasn’t shaping up nicely (compare the failed 2018 acquisition attempt to the expedited one over the summer). That said, if it is shaping up to be a Bugthesda game (and not in an endearing way) I could easily see it pushed. While no Starfield, Outer Worlds and Wasteland 3 both have DLC coming next year and Halo can be the year’s big title. What is most important is that Starfield is at minimum as good as FO4, if not Oblivion or Skyrim.
Also Todd said he likes to show things late as recently as the interview two days ago. Couple that with Hines’ comments and I think we may see it next year. Depends on how they adapted to Covid.
I mean yes. But the buyout changed everything. The potential is now huge and whilst we may have to wait a bit I don’t think the value proposition can be ignored. I know people who haven’t had an Xbox since 360 now buying a Series S or X and queuing up for a pre order. So I think the value proposition is penetrating beyond Xbox owners. Which is all really we needed. It might be a slow start but once games start hitting…
I’m actually buying for Demon’s Souls, lol (that and PS4 back compat).
That said, my concern with Sony is the opposite of Xbox. I think they are doing too much too early like Nintendo and it will lead to a drought, without the advantage of playing a different game like Nintendo does. Stock is limited in the earlier years because costs to produce are significantly higher and thus losses.
This year Naughty Dog, Media Molecule, BluePoint and Sucker Punch opened the floodgates. By next year we’ll have Insomniac (after both Ratchet and Miles), Polyphony, HouseMarque, Guerilla (at least the Horizon team), Santa Monica (if it actually makes it) and it is rumorer even the new Santa Monica studio.
That is a fantastic first year that I don’t think even Halo and Starfield can match 100% but what happens next? It’s gonna come down to second teams (if any), Bend, Pixelopus, London, Japan Studio, MLB The Show (now multiplat), moneyhats (which just went way up in price), moneyhatted DLC and third party deals/acquisitions.
I am not worried about either platform in the long run but MS had a 2 year drought and Sony ran away with the lead after bangers like Uncharted 4, Horizon Zero Dawn, Last Guardian, Ratchet and Clank, GT Sport, Gravity Rush and Lost Legacy. This made a significant difference in market share this gen.
This is not to say such a drought for Sony will be similar, but if Sony is a bit dry and MS has Hellblade 2, Avowed, Fable, Forza Horizon 5, Gears 6, State of Decay 3, Compulsion’s New Game, A New Arkane Game, The Intiative’s Title, Everwild, and updates, that could be interesting.
I’m looking at the same list you do OP - and come to a totally different conclusion.
The games that are true exclusives (as in: not coming to any other platform), are games I have all already played. Sony is trying to sell me the same games over and over again, with some added graphical bells and whistles, only now for €80.
They are severely lacking in diversity, many genres missing completely. And their cookie cutter formula is getting stale to me.
