Microsoft has struggled to make critically-acclaimed Xbox One exclusives, but it’s created a lot more choice for gamers in its search for success.
Microsoft has found it tough this generation. From a disastrous launch to painfully misconstrued messaging, the Xbox One got off to a sluggish start and hasn’t been able to catch up with Sony’s PS4 since. And yet it’s the console I’ve played the most by some margin because Xbox has a better choice of games.
Before you pick up your pitchforks and light your torches, hear me out. Xbox has certainly struggled to create compelling, critically-acclaimed exclusives – there’s no denying that. Middling Metacritic scores have accompanied many of Microsoft’s first-party efforts, with scores ranging from the low sixties and often topping out at the mid eighties, and there have been more than a few missteps with certain franchises either being cancelled or released in a shoddy state. Not great, then.
But the sheer variety of Microsoft’s first-party output, in tandem with the success of Xbox Game Pass, has turned its search to find the next big hit into one of its biggest strengths – there’s a breadth of unique titles on offer.
Compare that to Sony, however, and it’s a very different story. Since the PS4 launched, Sony’s first-party studios have committed to creating exclusive narrative-driven, single-player games. From the graphically sublime God of War to the spectacular web-slinging Spider-Man, Sony has certainly delivered on this objective, and then some.
Few would argue, then, that these games are nothing short of excellent, but here’s where the problem lies. It honestly feels like that’s the only thing Sony makes anymore.
Here’s a small selection for context: God of War, Spider-Man, Days Gone, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Uncharted 4, The Last of Us 2, Ghost of Tsushima, The Order 1886 and InFamous: Second Son. When did Sony’s games become so… homogeneous?
Each Sony first-party exclusive game is yet another take on the same cookie-cutter formula which has, admittedly, given Sony incredible commercial and critical success.
