Neville Chamberlain once said “In war, whichever side may call itself the victor, there are no winners, but all are losers.” I’d like to riff on this timeless quote in my blog about the Xbox if you’ll allow it dear reader. In the console war there are no winners only losers, specifically those who hold much stock in the idea of a console war are the greatest losers. This is all to set the stage of the blog you’re reading. As silly as the concept of taking sides in a war between two major companies that care little for their supporters beyond their wallets and even less for the developers who work for them (See the recent round of layoffs by Microsoft) it is undeniable that Sony and Microsoft are engaged in a decades long battle for sales.
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Microsoft struck hard and fast with the Xbox 360 dominating the early part of the seventh generation before Sony was able to claw all the way back and eventually overtake them in sales by the time the generation ended. Once the Playstation 3 overtook the 360 in sales Sony has never looked back. Winning the eighth generation and continuing their success with the Playstation 5. Microsoft and Xbox have attempted to woo the average gamer back to their platform with Game Pass, a membership service that allows subscribers to play hundreds of games for one low cost every month. It seems that it didn't move the needle in the way they hoped, ultimately it isn’t the breadth of games a company offers but instead the quality of the titles available.
Nintendo knows this well, instead of competing head to head with Sony and Microsoft they doubled down on what worked. Recognizable titles buoyed by the well earned prestige Nintendo has accrued over the years. So too did Sony embrace the path of quality exclusives, The Last of Us, God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn among others that made the Playstation 5 the next gen console of choice for someone with $500 burning a hole in their pocket. If third party games ran more or less equally on both the PS5 and Series X then it made sense for the average consumer to choose the platform that also offered better exclusives. So the Xbox brand was at an impasse, with no homegrown titles of prominence or acclaim they solved their problem as any American company would, by throwing insane amounts of money at it.
In March of 2021 the company bought Bethesda, creators of The Elder Scrolls and Fallout Series since Fallout 3, and publishers of Wolfenstein and Doom for a cool $7.5 billion. Then in January of 2022 they bought gaming behemoth Activision Blizzard for an even cooler $68.7 billion. With that purchase came classics like World of Warcraft and Diablo as well as Call of Duty and Overwatch. Thanks to the almighty power of the dollar Microsoft was poised to make a run at the title of console king. However making video games is a slow process, add in some antitrust lawsuits to navigate and things get even slower.
This all brings us to Summer Games Fest 2024 where Xbox was set to deliver a showcase that many were not expecting much from. Given Microsoft’s recent history of underdelivering and the current state of the video game industry could you really blame gamers for their tepid excitement? Personally I didn’t even watch live, long gone are the days of Fake Nerds on the main youtube channel and this blog had sat dormant for more than three years so I had nothing compelling me to deliver my hot takes. This would end up being a shame really as the Xbox showcase easily surpassed the low expectations that most gamers had and set the company up to actually compete with Sony going forward.
There was a little something for everyone on display. The Gears of War prequel Gears of War: E-Day which welcomes back fan favorites Marcus Phoenix and Dom Santiago is most exciting to my bro-ish sensibilities. Which were developed most earnestly the first time I fired up my 360 in 2007 and took in the sights and sounds of Sera. Doom: The Dark Ages stole the show with its bloody action and the addition of a gun that fires pieces of skulls. Fable and Call of Duty also excited gamers as did the gameplay trailer Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. For the first time in a while those who claim to be part of the Xbox army rejoiced, while still being losers they can nevertheless be excited about what’s to come. As can the rest of us who just want quality titles and maybe have a soft spot for the Xbox but not in a console war way but in a detached blogger sort of way. Which I assure you is much cooler.
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