PlayStation has traditionally been known to deliver a stronger lineup of exclusive games than Xbox- a lot of that has had to do with Microsoft’s weaker first party, and their insistence on pushing for third party multiplatform games more than exclusive game development. The fact that a lot of Japanese developers make their games exclusive to PlayStation by default also does not help.
The same appears to be true this generation, too- even as Microsoft expand their first party pipeline, Sony are tapping into the studios and IP they already have and delivering on generation defining hits such as Bloodborne, Ratchet and Clank, and Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End.
But while that lineup is great, Microsoft is not convinced. Speaking to Speaking to GamesIndustry, Xbox head Phil Spencer said that he doesn’t believe that Sony’s exclusives lineup is necessarily better than Xbox’s.
“When I look at this year, I’ll just take the E3 conferences… we showed four big games launching exclusively on Xbox One and Windows 10,” he began. “When I think about Gears, Forza Horizon, ReCore, Dead Rising 4 – all of those games are launching this year and they’ve been announced, there are dates next to them,” he said.
“And I think on the indie side, we’ve got Inside which I’ve been playing. We’ve got We Happy Few. We’ve got Below. We’ve got Cuphead. There are a ton more, but I’m just thinking about some real highlights in indie games that are coming this year. When I watch the other platforms, it’s not always clear to me when the games are shipping or how many of them are shipping this year.”
That last bit he says is definitely a reference to Sony showing games prematurely and ahead of time, often by years. It has grown to be problem of late, and even in their conference this year, which was great, Sony ended up debuting a lot of games without dates.
That said, Phil Spencer emphasized that he respects the Sony lineup too.
“I mean these are a pretty diverse set of games from a great set of developers. And to say that the other consoles are doing a better job shipping more games for their customer… I don’t see that.
“And I see what the other first-party is doing – Uncharted was an amazing game. I think Naughty Dog did a great job. I’m sure Last Guardian, when it ships this year, will be great, but I just look at the lineup and the quantity and the quality that our team’s been shipping and I feel really good about that,” he concluded.
The PlayStation lineup does far more for me personally than the Xbox lineup does- but I do think anyone who were to claim that the Xbox lineup is in any way lacking at this point would be just unreasonably biased, and incapable of rational thought.