Xbox 20th Anniversary: The Best Xbox Launch Games

I sank so many hours into PGR1, learning to nail every corner... still the GOAT of racing games (ok, maybe behind Forza Horizon).

Bring back PGR as Forza Metro, a city based arcade racer.

Some great titles there but Battlefield 4 did not launch well at all. That game was broken for an entire year and was absolutely unplayable at launch. EA even apologised for putting it out in the state it was in.

The Xbox One had a really underrated launch, Forza 5 was one of the best launch games of all time IMO, and Ryse is a well aged classic.

Project Gotham Racing 3 should be on this list, as that was a 360 launch game and I remember that being my most played game during that period. It probably had the best online community I had ever experienced for a racing game, I remember getting to know people in lobbies and playing cat and mouse. Good times.

Halo is, IMO, one of the best launch titles ever, up there with Mario 64 and Super Mario World.

Perfect Dark Zero had the potential of being that good… but… ugh.

Dead Rising 3 and Ryse of Rome could had likely carried some weight for me had Microsoft messaging not made me avoid all things Xbox like the plague for half a generation.

Yakuza Like A Dragon was an amazing launch game, as was Valhalla, but there is something to be said about non-platform exclusives but packing as strong of a punch.

@antstephenson I don’t know much about racing games but it sounds like this could work. Keep Forza Motorsport as the sim game, Horizons as an open wold arcade, and fork a team from the same studio in the same manner they did for Horizon, but to work on a city street racing arcade series, just keep the PGR IP, don’t tie it to Forza.

Does MS own that IP, though?

@JayJ sadly the XBO launch was clouded by the terrible launch messaging, but in retrospect, the XBO had an insanely fantastic launch lineup. I still find it odd anyone downplaying as “third party” Dead Rising 3 given to this day it’s still xbox console exclusive.

@Tharsman
Nah, I think Activision hold the rights to PGR.
But, it's just a racing game, so slap the Forza name on it and add a couple of elements into the game to differentiate it from PGR and i don't think there would be an issue.

@antstephenson you know, MS might actually own the IP after all. Went to the wiki and it notes the series was discontinued “ after being bought by Activision, Bizarre Creations announced that PGR4 would be the last game produced for Microsoft.” so it sounds like it was MS hiring them to make the games.

Blur is also called “a spiritual successor”, so it sounds they didn’t have access to the PGR name.

Edit: also looking at the wiki seems there was a 2009 entry exclusive for the Zune, by Microsoft Games Studios developed by Pixelbyte AB.

So maybe MS could indeed resurrect that IP and fill yet another niche in the racing genre.

@Tharsman @antstephenson MS kept full ownership of the PGR IP. It never belonged to Bizarre Creations so never went to Activision.

@Shigurui clarification appreciated.

Now, Phil! Use that IP! If one thing Xbox needs to milk out, it’s nostalgia, and this IP carries a lot of nostalgia with it! Besides, Horizons 5 shows there is lots of hunger for good racing games!

There’s some pretty average games on that list however it has to be said that Halo , PGR2 and COD2 were proper classics at launch.
It feels like for the current gen that Microsoft should have delayed launch of the console by a year. Can you imagine the buzz if they had launched the Series S/X with MSFS, Halo Infinite and Forza Horizon 5 instead of The Medium. That would have been a legendary laugh line up.

@Shigurui
I did not know that... good info 👍

I remember playing the 360 at this IGN gaming event they held at the Anaheim convention center and being blown away by Need for Speed with surround sound being chased by helicopters and duking it out in the trenches in Call of Duty with other gamers in brutal local LAN matches. Had a good time with every Xbox but the XBone. Pretty weak continuation after the 360. That console was WAY ahead of it's time as an internet, connected living device. Picture in picture, love streaming of faces gaming, all digital content, face tracking with Kinect, integration with 3rd party apps, trigger rumble on the controllers, etc. Pretty much the coolest stuff no gamer asked for. Totally wrong demographic & they had to change a lot of those initial ideas since they were rejected. The XSX is hitting all the right notes: great games!!

I absolutely loved all the Project Gotham games and I’m not even a huge racing fan.
They were just so much fun and as stated not solely about finishing first.
It would be a must buy for me if they ever resurrected the franchise but I don’t think they will.

I would happily put the OG Xbox up there with the PSP, Dreamcast and Wii as one of the most (if not THE most) successful console launch lineup of all time. Within a few weeks we got Panzer Dragoon Orta and JSRF too.

The Xbox 360 would have come close if it wasn't for the fact that the campaign in Perfect Dark Zero was terrible and Microsoft split their launch market into happy customers who brought the Pro console and unhappy ones who ended up with the terrible Core unit. Also you forgot Hexic.

The Xbox One launch was actually better than I remember and the console launched with so much promise. Then Microsoft chopped off lots of cool features like Snap, cancelled all their 1st party games and, well it took them 3 years to bring it back.

The Series X had an embarrassing launch IMO. No great console exclusives and nothing you could let buy elsewhere compared to the new titles and clever hardware tricks of the PS5. A year later however and this is Microsoft's best Christmas since 2002 in terms of software.

@RadioHedgeFund maybe you're not old enough to remember that, but the SNES launched with Super Mario World, F-zero and Sim City along others. That's certainly one of the best console launch line-ups ever.

In terms of launch titles I think the series S/X had the worst so far out of any console I can remember

@antstephenson The whole PGR IP had a weird birth but it always belonged to MS. Bizarre made Metropolis Street Racer for the Sega Dreamcast and Sega still hold the rights to it.

PGR 1 was basically a remaster of MSR but they couldn't use the name and Project Gotham was the working title that just stuck and MS bankrolled the game so ended up with the IP ownership.

The Xbox Series X, like PS5, benefited in large part from cross-gen releases but the new hardware plays the games so much better than last gen that, being objective, I think it makes Series X the best overall launch day and launch year of any Xbox console. 360 is high up there as well though. Project Gotham Racing 3 was a standout, Call of Duty 2, Quake 4 and Perfect Dark Zero had FPS fans covered, Condemned is one of the greatest horror/action games ever made, Kameo was a solid platforming adventure and for us sports fans there was NBA 2K6. One of the best consoles (still my favorite Xbox) ever and it started with a tremendously good lineup.

I wouldn't say the original Xbox had the best lineup but as a fan of the older Dead or Alive games, DoA 3 was a great companion to one of the best and most influential launch games in history, Halo: Combat Evolved. Xbox One launch was meh, but I felt last gen as a whole didn't really pick up until 2016.

@Zag_Man that was the same for me. I played Doom and Wolfenstien and tried to get into Goldeneye on N64. But they never really grabbed me or felt good. Then Halo came along and finally made sense to me. Now I really enjoy FPS games but none ever feel as good to me as Halo.

@Shigurui

Always thought it strange that MS abandoned PGR... the last game, PGR 4, was superb. I know they had Forza Motorsport around by then, but the 2 games were quite distinct from each other. Doing a bit of googling, it looks like PGR4 sold respectably too... odd that MS would give up on a flagship game (especially when you look at how long they have been flogging Halo and Gears).

@Magabro I remember. But I am first and foremost a blue-blooded Sega kid from that era. It will be a cold day in hell before I admit Nintendo made a better 16 bit console than Sega did!

It was all about DOA3 for me when I grabbed up an Xbox

The game I remember the most and the only reason I wanted an Xbox for back in the day was MechWarrior! I had an absolute blast playing that thing. Outside of that I don't really recall anything else i had for it. Gave it to my younger brother at some point I'm pretty sure. My girlfriend at the time bought it for me randomly and i just wanted MechWarrior.

I think it's safe to say that with Halo and Project Gotham Racing, the original Xbox still has the best launch lineup of all. :-X

Also really digged Call of Duty 2 - still the best splitscreen multiplayer shooter on the 360 in my book.

@antstephenson After PGR4 Martin Chudley (Bizarre's owner) wanted to make something else and sort of fell out with MS Game Studios. When the company folded a lot of the staff went to Playground/Turn10 and others formed Lucid Games so I guess there was nobody to make more PGR titles and MS had 2 stellar driving games on their books in Forza and FH. Such a shame we'll likely never see a new PGR.