We’re already one year into the latest console generation and my, doesn’t time cease to matter when the planet is dying, people are starving, and billionaires are heading into space? Wait, that’s not the expression… doesn’t time fly, that’s it. Anyway, we’ve had the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Xbox Series X/S for a year now, and what a year it’s been. After Xbox categorically lost the previous generation, it needed to do something drastic. I think it 🍎might be working, since it seems like Xbo𒈔x has won the first year.
I’m not interested in the stats. I’m sure Sony fans can throw out sales numbers that prove 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:PlayStation came out on top ಞ- I’m not interested. This is not just a battle of straight sales. Xbox has done more in its first yeꦉar of what it needed to do than PlayStation has, and after the PS4 annihilated the Xbox One, Microsoft should take all the wins it can get.
Oh, and by the way, ‘Sony fans’ - what’s that about? Fans of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Uncharted, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Last of Us, or 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:God of War? Sure. Fans who prefer the PlayStation as a console and ecosystem to Xbox? Fine. But fans of Son🌱y, as a corporate entity? What are you🗹 doing being a fan of a business? This goes for Xbox and Nintendo fans too - stop liking companies and start enjoying games, nitwits.
Because I work in games, a lot of people in my real life will ask me about them. I’ve suggested to four different people꧅ this year that they buy an Xbox Series S, versus zero for a PS5. One of those guys wasn’t even as🥂king about consoles - they wanted directions to the train station. Doesn’t matter. I’ve been telling everyone to get in on the ground floor with the Xbox Series S.
PlayStation was already winning. It’s had a decent year, but nothing to write home about. Destruction All-Stars, Returnal, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, and that’s kind of it. Deathloop too, but that’s also on PC. There’s stuff in the 𝐆pipeline, sure, but this isn’t about who won 2022. In the here and now, PlayStation has one great exclusive, one divisive and niche title that took months to add a save option, and a flop. It’s hardly a match for the 2020 line-up of Final Fantasy 7 Remake, The Last of Us Part 2, Ghost of Tsushima, Spi🔯der-Man: Miles Morales, Demon’s Souls, Nioh 2, Persona 5 Royal, and Astro’s Playroom.
It’s not about like for like. PlayStation has made exclusives its business, so that’s what it must be judged by. Xbox struggled with exclusives throughout last gen, and no one expected that to change in the first year of the new one. It’s ending the year strong, with Forza Horizon 5 and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Halo Infinite, but it’s not about the exclusives for Xbox right now. In a few years’ time, when the pandemic side♛ effects have worn off and the Bethesda acquisition bears fruit, maybe it’ll lay a glove on Sony in that department. But 🎃I haven’t been telling everyone to buy a Series S in the hopes Forza would be good.
.jpg?q=50&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=1.5)
Xbox’s ace in the hole is Game Pass. It’s almost not worth mentioning, since it’s so obvious - but for everyone outside of the immediate circle of games fans, it’s not that obvious. When I tell people to buy a Series S, I follow it up with the fact it’s £250 and for £15 it has basically every game on there. That’s an easier sell than ﷺthe PS5’s £360 price tag with an additional requirement of £70 per game. Especially when the only game I can really point to for casual pla🌠yers is Ratchet & Clank right now. Oh, also, you can actually buy one without sacrificing your first-born to the gods of online sho❀pping.
‘Every game’ is obviously a bit of a lie. Ratchet & Clank, for example, isn’t included, and with a similar degree of obviousness, neither are any other PlayStation or Nintendo exclusives. The PS+ Collection offers some great PS games for PS5 players, but it can’t hold🍌 a candle to Game Pass.
PS exclusives aren’t entirely safe either. This year, MLB: The Show was on Game Pass at launch, despite having been a long time PS exclusive and being made by a Sony studio. Outriders and Back 4 Blood, both cross-platform games, also joined Game Pass at launch, as will all Xbox exclusives for the foreseeable future. Game Pass also added I♔t Takes Two and The Forgotten City a few months after launch, as well as having Boyfriend Dungeon and The Artful Escape right away - that’s four of this year’s best games all packed into a single subscription.
It’s not just ‘Game Pass good’, although yeah, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Game Pass good. I have both a Series S and PS5 for work, and at the start of this gen, I couldn’t see why anyone would want an Xbox aside from the price. I know the PS5 has still outsold it, but now I think all the reasons to buy a new-gen console ar🍌e in Xbox✅’s court. Even Quick Resume, a feature that sounded like a techno nonsense waste of time, has been useful - mostly because of how many different games you can play thanks to Game Pass.
The stats will show that the PS5 has outsold the Xbox Series, and if that’s all you care about, PlayStation has won this year. But PlayStation h🌜as long traded on the simple idea of having better games. In 2021, it has regressed. Xbox, meanwhile, has progressed rapidly, making a huge hit out of Game Pass and finishing the year with two huge titles as PlayStation runs out of cards to play. Xbox has made up a lot of ground this year, and even though it’s still behind in the overall race, that has to feel like a win.