Xbox Celebrates A Record Year For Its First-Party Studios

Eyyyy, I wasn't the only one to really enjoy Battletoads, that's nice.

I think the real telling thing is that aisde from a few hours in Grounded and maybe 15 minutes of Battletoads, I've not played a single game listed to vote for.

@InterceptorAlpha Oh yes and also expect to deny ever touching Starfield, Elder Scrolls 6, next Doom, Fable, Avowed, Hellblade 2, The Initiative’s AAAA, State of Decay 3 and several others that I haven’t mentioned. But still coming here to post some unsolicited opinions for years to come.

Battletoads has absolutely been my favorite release so far. Such a funny and awesome game! Also, I am proud to be a small part of that huge milestone!

So many great games! My backlog is insane. And with Microsoft having the best & biggest stable of 1st party studios now, it’s only going to get crazier.

And should Doom Eternal be on the list now that iD is a 1st party developer exclusive to the Xbox ecosystem? 😁

@Senua Since your hardcore fanbiy is showing lemme give you a counter argument:

State of Decay: 1 was trash. 2 was passable. Only reason I ever played the second one was game pass otherwise I wouldn't have wasted my money.

You can go ahead and write off most of Bethesda's stuff. Elder Scrolls has been trash since 3 and I had no intentions on ever buying another until Microsoft bought them so maybe it'll be decent.

Hard to be hyped for Fable when 2 and 3 wer ebith dumpster fires and the first one was only good if you had The Lost Chapters.

Doom has been okay. Wolf has went downhill after the first.

Avowed, Hellblade 2, and Intiative`s games at this point have zero information to be hyped over.

Finally: unsolicited opinion? You do have the cognitive ability to realize that is literally the purpose of comments on an article, right?

I love Xbox as much as the next guy and have 2 Series Xs on pre-order. But yes, please keep getting upset over the fact that someone could possibly have different tastes from you or isn't blinded by unbeneficial fanboyism.

@Medic_Alert tell me about it. We're having some friends over to show them off and honestly it is a little embarrassing that the only thing to really give them are backwards comparable games like MCC. Doesn't bother me as far as using the console though. I bought it the same way I do video cards for my PCs. No specific game in bind but it just being time to.

I have a good feeling this generation is gonna be the best one yet even better than the 360..

@InterceptorAlpha “unbeneficial fanboyism” Oh yes I see it in a great amount from pushsquare sheeps these days, constantly living in a state of denial and never try to demand better. But anyway thanks to you, you have already proved my previous allegation of being a blind hater under the wolf mask of a very concerned user not anything really different from the rest of your cabal and so called “journalists” that likes to keep 2 different standards of judgement, narratives, transparencies and expectations which ultimately affects the healthy competition for actual gamers.
🤧🤮

@Medic_Alert You’re talking with someone who have no idea of Xbox ecosystem or can give 2 $#|T about it and probably always want them to fail completely so that their overlords can further pollute the competition with anti-consumer practices. I have seen even PS fanboys having a great deal of respect for Playground Games Studio and their work. Please don’t deal with these wolves anymore.

@InterceptorAlpha I was ok with your argument until the elder scrolls thing Morrowind
Is my favorite game but to say oblivion and skyrim we're trash is just silly I understand that they were not as good as Morrowind but they have aged way better and were fun to play at launch for hundreds of hours. Playground games has done a great job on everything they have made to dismiss them just because fable 3 was lame is not really fair I think they will do a great job from playing the things they have made. Just my two cents your opinion is great I'm excited for the future.

@Senua I'm confused why a website I've never been on is bring brought up? Fanboyism is idiocy regardless of which side does it.

But hey. Yea. You're clearly right. I do wanna see Xbox fail given that I have more play time on it than my Switch and PS4, possibly even PC, combined.

@VisitingComet1 I can't agree with Elder Scrolls. I replay Morrowind and dabble in Daggerfall all the time. Oblivious aside from Shivering Isles was a mess and cut so much content from previous games. Skyrim was barely even a RPG and cut even more things out. If you enjoyed them, then that's awesome. I'm glad you did. They were not for me though.

I never said anything about Playground Games. They make awesome racing games. That does not mean they can make an awesome RPG though.

I hope Flight Sim not having the PC icon that Age of Empires III Definitive Edition has is a hint that Flight Sim Xbox is launching this year.

@InterceptorAlpha “I do wanna see Xbox fail given that I have more play time on it than my Switch and PS4, possibly even PC, combined.” my brain hurts just reading that line, can’t endure so much of BS reasoning. Also please spare us from reading another line of your idiotic argument.
GET HELP and GET WELL SOON!

@Senua Did you really miss the text book sarcasm from that immediately following my picture with 15 years tenure on Xbox Live with 11,000 followers? Of you know, the fact that I said I had more time played on my Xbox than everything else combined?

Does your fanboyism make you blind to even that? 🤣 Either way you remind me too much of that KelticDevil kid so you're getting a block as well.

@InterceptorAlpha seems like you incurred the wrath of the resident clown fanboys on here. There the type of who can’t take a persons opinion that dares criticise their plastic box.

I find it an interesting tell in the innner workings of monetization on Game Pass that "hours played" is an important metric to them. Not good or bad, just interesting.

@Cyrus29 Man. Tell me about it. I enjoy my Xbox but I'm gonna criticize where criticism is due. And given criticism can be both objective and subjective, opinion comes into play a good bit.

What gets me though is they're so against criticism. Yet, if not for said criticism we wouldn't have things like the most powerful console in the form of Series X, Gamepass, or really any of the great things Microsoft has been doing for their camp.

Well done everyone! Xbox is a success where every gamer also plays a part.

I voted Halo CE on PC, but I wish MCC PC overall was 1 option.

@Medic_Alert @InterceptorAlpha I'm with you guys. I cancelled my XSX because without Halo there's nothing for me to buy it for, even as it was only for comparison sake. Everything will be better on PC for me. I'll get one eventually and will use it "as a generational investment" although that doesn't really mean much for Xbox since 2015 sadly.

Same reason I cancelled my PS5, nothing to buy for the foreseeable future.

Edit: I do think it's very interesting when you look at what counts as an "Xbox Studios" game now a days. This list is a great example of why the perception of Xbox games are so much lower quality than the other 2 companies. Outside Halo, Gears, Forza (the meme!) it's all just indie level stuff. And a few PC exclusives. Cue someone to rabidly call me a Playstation fanboy though, despite liking their 1st party exclusives even fewer and further between.

@Menchi You're not wrong at all. Don't get me wrong. I definitely enjoy some of the smaller games, but despite that, what kind of truly AAA experiences have they been delivering? Even looking at Halo, Halo 4 was garbage and Halo 5 was okay. Though the community generally sees it the other way around.

Gears? Well, honestly after 3 I was pretty much done. Skipped judgment. Never played the remaster of the original. And I'm maybe half way through 5 and at this point I'll just restart it when the Series X version comes out.

Forza? Well. Horizon has been half what I wanted from a game. Bust so has Motorsport. I want an open world like Horizon with the simulation of Motorsport. And the customization as well. The way Horizon does with annoying generalities. Though maybe Motorsport does now too. But the ones of old didn't. I don't think atleast. It has been too long.

Maybe owning Bethesda will do something about this. But the thing I want from them the most is to just enable crossplay on Elder Scrolls Online so I can get my PC Character on my console and play it with my dad again as my PC needs some work I don't plan on doing any time soon.

They did Crackdown 3 as well which was more of a disappointment to me than anything else despite the first Crackdown being one of my all time favorite games.

We're just missing those heavyweight hitters man.

@VisitingComet1 @Senua

That guy is a PS troll who I had to ignore long ago. He comes on this website to criticize Xbox because he has nothing better to do in his life. Sad little man. 🙄

@InterceptorAlpha Mate, you need to realise that when you write these long posts where you hate on literally the majority of Xbox exclusives (and using childish terms like garbage, trash, dumpster fires etc.), on an Xbox website nonetheless, then you're exhibiting troll behaviour and opening yourself up for heated responses. It's like going over to Push Square and writing: "The Last of Us sucks, God of War isn't the same as before, Spider-Man was boring, Ghost of Tsushima is a mediocre open world game" etc. and then being shocked at people responding to you negatively. Like what did you expect?

Common sense goes a long way. Just don't write these negative posts and you won't get jumped on. I'm not a fanboy by any means, but even I get annoyed when reading posts like yours. Negativity is universally not appreciated, especially when you keep making more and more negative posts. We get it, you don't like Xbox exclusives. Move on.

@InterceptorAlpha It's more so the spectacle and production value of the AAA titles. For example Ori 1 completely blindsided me after I played it on a whim from viewer request during the Ori 2 reveal. I loved it. 100%'d the game after I finished it. I have 2 but haven't found the time to play it.

Post Bungie Halo has definitely dropped in quality, 4 was ok but 5 had major issues. Funnily enough the actual gameplay of 5 was very solid (bring on that eventual PC port after MCC!) but the story, characters, setting, etc were useless.

Gears is the same. Original trilogy was great, 4 was good, I think it gets more hate than it deserves, but 5 was totally forgettable for 99% of it. Gears 4 lasted me online for horde mode right up until Gears 5. Gears 5 lasted me maybe 2 months, reinstalled last week, that only lasted me a few days. Tried something new with Tactics, worked well. I love Gears, I love Xcom, win/win.

Racing isn't my thing so I don't play Forza.

But look at everything else Xbox has put out over the last 5 years. Grounded, that overwatch clone that was dead on day 1`(can't remember the name), Sea of Thieves, Crackdown 3, State of Decay 2, Battletoads, the list goes on even into next gen with The Goop or whatever it's called.

Compared to what Sony is putting out. I don't even like most of their games but it's the optics on the games/systems/reception. Spiderman, Ghosts Of Tsushima, God of War, The Last Of Us 2 (I played TLOU2, biggest mistake ever), Uncharted, Horizon Zero Dawn, more that I'm forgetting. If you look at the list, Sony is producing critically acclaimed, console visual showcase bangers. Microsoft is making.....what exactly? Claymation gamepass fodder.

I'll continue to buy the Microsoft franchises I enjoy on PC, such as Gears, Halo and other smaller things. While I can opine about all this as I'm just 1 example, the sales numbers show the public opinion. PS4s sold, units sold of games, etc

@Menchi personally i like both ms and Sony games, though honestly i only like 30-50% of each.. There's many third parties i like more, though Bethesda now counts as ms games so that changes things a bit.

But I'm not sure perception is worth it's weight in poop. Sony games have mass market and dare i say it, casual appeal. Interactive movies with big production values and gameplay bolted on top of varying quality depending on the studio. I love uncharted. Guilty pleasure. But in not under any delusion it's actually a good video game. At all. But it's entertaining as interactive entertainment without having to be a video game. That lets it be a visual feast and appeals to the masses. Critics love it because critics love big budgets, arthouse, things they can complete in short time tables, sucking up to Sony for fear of being cut off (this is huge..... Not joking there. Speaking from experience in the games press. Ms never once pressured good results. ).

Microsoft's games are more... Loose? Old school? Gamey? They're more experimental gamer's games rather than mass market product pushers. It's easy to see why they don't get the same perception. Lower budgets, not visual showcases usually, complicated and or a learning curve applies. Not as showy and accessible as Sony, but more fun as a toy... More nintendo like but rougher... Or sega like.

Soulsborne and ratchet are the only really gamey games in the ps stable. They had others but killed them off and moved on. , but soulsborne is a very niche, acquired taste. Similarly i respect sea of thieves for what it is, but it isn't for me. Multiplayer sandbox doesn't do it for me.

@LtSarge Nah. I'll write as I feel. You word your post as if I complained about it. I did not. If someone gets their panties in a bunch I'll block them as I have been doing. 🤷‍♂️ I can't help it that the games my friends used to play, that went down hill and made them jump to Playstation, didn't make me do so as well and I still enjoy Xbox. If you don't like seeing my posts please feel free to press ignore.

I have a PS4 yea, it is mainly a Persona and Gundam Breaker box. If I had any interest in being part of the Pushsquare community. But if I were I'd gladly tell them that TLoU2 sucked and they never should have made a sequel to the masterpiece that was the first.

@Menchi You articulated that in a way that is absolutely fantastic.

Don't get me wrong, I love Grounded, even if the Xbox version is broken. Anytime you try to build, a key point of the game, it crashes.

Sony has managed to pretty much ALWAYS have a AAA in the oven that everyone is talking about. Sometimes more than one at a time. That word a mouth goes a huge way to swaying people to play it instead.

Halo used to do that. But instead the newest, that came out half a decade ago and is pretty much universally hated. There just nothing you immediately go for.

Honestly I think the Bethesda acquisition was them attempting this. Doom 3? Gotta get an Xbox for that. Elder Scrolls? Gotta get an Xbox. But of course, this is assuming they don't let them be multiplat like they have been others.

@NEStalgia But that's what I'm saying. Mass market appeal. Might or might not make for a good game depending on your tastes, but appeals to a lot of people meaning sales numbers and potentially a large satisfied customer base. Big budgets? Critical praise.

Perception? High quality, loved by many gamers and critics, high score reviews, big AAA look and feel. What the average joe wants for his €70.

@Menchi maybe. Mass appeal doesn't mean "better" necessarily. In that sense the subscription game pass is a perfect way to flip that script. Get people trying fun games that aren't big budget press pleasers.

I mean Michael Bay movies please the masses. Doesn't mean I'd pay money to see one.

Don't get me wrong, I'm getting my ps5, I'll play several of the popcorn games and love them. But i think those games get so much attention for so the wrong reasons and I'm glad the alternative exists. If they can make it profitable with a pay model beyond giving 70 bucks a shot, great no

@InterceptorAlpha "Nah I'll write as I feel".

So basically you're admitting that you're actively provoking people in order to elicit the response that you're looking for, a.k.a trolling. In that case, the only reason you're writing these posts is to instigate fights among users. That will eventually lead to a ban and I'll personally make sure to report you if I see you actively trolling in future articles because that is against the community rules.

"Do not "troll" or "bait" other users; Posts that purposefully or systematically go against the grain to trigger a reaction from others are prohibited. You are entitled to an opinion, but purposefully disrupting discussions with unpopular opinions to create arguments is not allowed, we simply suggest you don't get involved in these conversations. Users that are seen to be continuously trolling or baiting will be banned."

Keep that in mind the next time you want to write a post like the previous ones. Just because you're on the internet doesn't mean that you're allowed to do whatever you want without consequences.

@LtSarge

"So basically you're admitting that you're actively provoking people in order to elicit the response that you're looking for, a.k.a trolling."

Sure is a lot of assumption here.

"I'll write as I feel." only means I'll continue to give my honest feelings on subjects.

Not sure how you took what you did from that statement.

Love MS first party games. They just provide more fun and value for me, and last longer.

@InterceptorAlpha very true. Having an individual opinion opens up more discussion. Not everyone will have the same thoughts, so it’s good to hear all sides, compared to usual fanboy deluded conversations.