Okay, let’s talk Xbox One X. The hardware part is now secured, with the Xbox One X being as great as it is (and early indications are that it is performing well on the market, too). The services part, Microsoft has always been good at- but the games part? Xbox is now worse off when it comes to exclusive games than it has ever been before- and nothing we have seen of Xbox’s upcoming exclusives lineup for 2017 allays any fears we may hold about Microsoft’s investment in the brand.
However, speaking to Rocket Beans TV at Gamescom, Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg tackled this issue head on, recognizing that right now, Microsoft was just focusing on games that are due to release this year and early next year, but that they have a whole lot of other games in the works, including new IPs, that they hope to talk about closer to their release.
“One of the things we have been thoughtful about is when do we want to start talking about new games? Phil Spencer has talked about this previously, too. For example, The Coalition is very hard at work right now on a number of things- we aren’t talking about them right now. 343 is doing Awakening, the expansion of Halo Wars 2, but we aren’t talking about other things they’re doing,” he said.
“I think in the past we have talked about how far in advance we talk about things that are coming. So you’ll see that right now we’re focusing on the games that are coming this Holiday, and the Spring. We have a lot of other things in the works, a lot of things people have never heard of, new games, things made by existing studios. So gamers should feel confident about investing in an Xbox One, and that there is a lot of content in the works, some really great titles, and things that will surprise people. But we wanna wait, no spoilers, we want to tell people when we’re ready- I mean, this Holiday, there’s enough games even outside of our own exclusives- FIFA 18, Shadow of War, Assassin’s Creed, Call of Duty, Destiny, Star Wars- just the multiplatform games, how can you have time to play all those games?”
Speaking of multiplatform games, he mentioned that apart from exclusive games, the Xbox One X would also have the benefit of playing multiplatform games the best- and so any gamer who is a fan of any type of fan would be guaranteed to find those kinds of games looking and playing best on the One X.
“One of the things that is nice about Xbox One X is that your games will look and play better on Xbox One X. So whatever kind of game you are a fan of, you can know that game will look incredible on Xbox One X, simply amazing. So, we’re trying to make, really, this the premium platform to showcase the best games, whether they are exclusive or not- and we know that matters to a lot of gamers. That is a benefit of investing in an Xbox One X.”
That is hard to argue- but, we return to the conundrum of exclusive games. I can only hope that Greenberg is correct, and that the games that Microsoft does announce are as exciting as Halo, Gears, and Fable once were.
