And you forgot Bloodborne and Horizons, which make it worthwhile on their own, for me, but I also love the Uncharted and Last of Us games, and have gotten more fun out of Little Big Planet than I expected. On the other hand, I have zero interest in any Xbox exlusive. Zero.
That said, pre-ordering Scorpio was an easy decision for me, as I don’t have a One, have a 4k OLED, really want a 4K bluray player, have a bunch of 360 games I’ll still play through backwards compatibility on a more capable machine, AND have a far more powerful console than my ps4pro to play any new games on the console that aren’t ps4 exclusive. One of the easiest purchases ever. Spencer has done an amazing job at getting xbox back on track, imo
I would like to upgrade to a XBO X, but only if I can trade in my XB One I guess. Even then, if the trade in involves giving them my Kinect, I would be reluctant to do that. Of course, taking my Kinect from the old console and just plugging it into the X is not an option either. You need to get some kind of cable adapter thing which costs a lot of money.
the idea that a console needs exclusives to be worth buying is pretty stupid imo. As long as it runs well, has a good selection of games and a decent online/social system it has value.
I think it matters only when it comes to comparison shopping. If someone is deciding between XB1X and PS4Pro, if they don’t already have a social network of friends in place, they might decide upon one or the other based on exclusives.
Exclusives, price, friends, and performance are what matter. The prioritization of those 4 items depends on you. For me it’s exclusives followed by performance. I’m not price-sensitive and my friends aren’t gamers.
Disagree, you kind of need to add “games” to the list. Because say I care about playing The Witcher 3, I couldn’t care less whether it’s exclusive. As long as it’s there, it’s a plus for that console. So, for me, the order is: games, performance, price, exclusives and friends tying last.
Almost everyone looks at the total library when buying a console. As a normal shopper though, you’re going to look at what differentiates one from another. That’s where Microsoft is losing without strong exclusive content.
As soon as you start investigating the library, you see that they really don’t offer much that the other guys don’t already have, especially if you’re a PC gamer. Even with friends there on the machine it’s a hard sell for kids especially. Most play on PS4 right now. The outliers have an Xbox today.
Solid, exciting, unique exclusives are still a huge draw, especially when everything else on the system is available elsewhere (and in the case of PS4 vs. Xbox One, it often ran better too…). I realize the X is meant to address that with sheer power so maybe in three years with a better library they can make up the ground they lost, but they need games to sell it now.
This argument isn’t any more compelling today than it was yesterday, Dave. I play lots of games on my Xbox. Not Naughty Dog stuff or Horizon or whatever else, but then I wouldn’t be able to play Forza or Halo games on a PS4 so that’s just chasing one’s tail. If your point is that Play Anywhere allows a lot of these games to be played on a PC well, yes. I think that’s the point. Would those folks have been interested in an Xbox One otherwise? I don’t know, maybe.
I took a good long time evaluating the field this gen. I was leaning PS4 for a while, mainlybout of curiosity. I ended up sticking with Xbox mainly for two reasons - wasn’t too interested in Sony’s first party/exclusives, and my friends play on Xbox. Most of my friends that game are former or current MS employees though, which is probably not a factor for many other people.
But as this gen has progressed I am happy I made the choice I did. I really like what they’re doing with back compat and their efforts to make carry those games forward. I’ve still got a ton of old Xbox games I haven’t played in a while because the optical drive on my OG Xbox is busted. Would love to be able to pop them into my Xbone and spin them up again. And hopefully continue to do so on future consoles.
I’m also happy that the Xbox One X is going to improve on the areas the original Xbone lacked. I’ve held off on playing through the Witcher 3, partly due to load times. Hoping that’s improved. But overall, I wouldn’t do things differently if I could. I don’t doubt PlayStation has some good things going on but I have only so many hours in a day and what spare gaming time I do have is booked pretty solid.
Cross-platform titles are table stakes. So that’s a negative for NIntendo, but they flat-out don’t compete with MS and Sony anymore and can be ignored. You buy a Nintendo if you want to play their first-party games, full-stop.
Think that’s a good list, but I’m reading it as “performance”=non-exclusive games are better. But 4k Bluray is also a huge factor for me - even though physical media is dying, it still offers quality/features that aren’t otherwise available, so it’s very relevant to us film fanatics. In fact, for me, it is the definitely the reason buying a Scorpio was an easy decision - if the PS4pro had one I may not have picked a scorpio up at all, or at least not until some time later.
So for me, I’d rank the factors as:
performance (best gaming performance by a likely considerable margin, for any games I play on console)
4k bluray.
exclusives, at least in theory. I have played all the Halo games other than 5, so maybe I’ll pick up that and Gears on sale?
Nothing else really matters. I don’t care about xbox live and price isn’t meaningful given the hours of entertainment it offers relative to how much I’d otherwise spend. If I just stay in a couple of days to play games it pays for itself. Bars are expensive in Toronto, heh.
I like the idea of multiplayer, but don’t really have local gaming friends and the types of games I prefer don’t work out well multiplayer, as nobody wants to take the time to read the lore, etc. heh. Maybe someday I’ll try to get people to go through Divinity Original Sin 2 or something.
Maybe you’re not in the best position to comment? Your personal experience is rather skewed. That’s definitely not a factor for almost all people buying a console.
My posts aren’t meant to target you specifically. The discussion I started is focused on the larger industry as a whole. Perceptions created by a lineup that is lacking. Hard numbers that prove Microsoft is behind and the gap isn’t exactly closing while a third player is resurgent. The industry as a whole is DOWN right now and I pin some of that on Microsoft’s failure to launch exclusives that sell their console.
Again, look at that picture I posted. That’s what they’re adveritising to sell their Xbox One X. You click that image and it takes you to a page of games with no release date known on the majority of the games. It’s a problem.
Absolutely, and I recognize this, which is partly why I called it out. My point is that you’re pontificating on all this exclusive business like you have a pipeline to god. But what you’ve done is exactly what I did - explain your justification for why you made the purchasing decision you did. Of course there are going to be people that give more weight to exclusives. And there’s going to be some quantity that just don’t care. And they’ll buy what they buy accordingly.
