Before Ratchet and U4 hit in 2016, Sony had released the following exclusives.
- Killzone Shadowfall - 70 metacritic
- Knack - 54
- Infamous - 80
- DriveClub - 71
- The Order - 64
- Bloodborne - 92
- Until Dawn - 79
All games with spectacular next gen graphics save for Knack. There was plenty of good stuff to pick from.
By this time in Xbox One's cycle, MS had released
Forza 5 - 79
Dead Rising 3 - 78
Ryse - 60
Titanfall - 86
Killer Instinct - 73
And they would go on to release Forza Horizon 2 (86) and Insomniac's Sunset Overdrive (81), arguably their best exclusive the entire gen. They did the cross gen releases right by downporting both Titanfall and Forza Horizon 2 where it was obvious that next gen versions looked and played next gen. Like Horizon Forbidden West. Even if it arrives later this year, Halo Infinite looks last gen.
So forget Sony, MS hasnt managed to match the year 1 lineup Don fucking Matrick managed to line up before he left for Zynga. I think MS's hardware and features team has knocked it out of the park but Phil and the first party studios have bungled this up badly. Hardware/Services 10/10. First party 0/10. They just didnt show up.
Honestly, none of the exclusives on either side did anything for me until 2016. I completed and rated -
Knack - 6.5/10
Infamous First Light - 7.0/10
The Order 1886 - 7.0/10
Until Dawn - 7.0/10
Ryse: Son of Rome - 7.0/10
Dead Rising 3 - 7.0/10
Played Bloodborne for around 8 hours or so. Great game im sure but not for me. The rest were of no interest and to be honest, looking back, if I could I would have only played Ryse and The Order 1886. The other four games I could have easily ignored and nothing of value have been lost. Ryse and The Order were at least visual showcases for each respective console that still are among the best 7 1/2 and about 6 1/2 years later respectively.
I agree in general that Xbox One was obviously way better than Xbox Series X but the difference is that I knew ahead of time that there would be nothing there outside of Gears Tactics which I played and completed. Rated it an 8.0/10. Only played Miles Morales for PS5. Rated it an 8.5/10. Of course, outside of Demon's Souls which I don't two craps about, I didn't need a PS5 or an XSX to play Miles/Gears Tactics. PS5 had a great launch lineup but two of the three games were cross-gen which Microsoft was bashed for the entire year of 2020 but Sony does it and nobody seemed to mind. Funny how that works.
Point is that while PS5 launch was great and better than Xbox, two out of the three games I didn't need a PS5 for in order to play them and Demon's Souls is not for me so that's the equivalent of having nothing. Returnal is current gen only but like Souls, isn't for me.
Ratchet is day one and already paid for. It's going to be a great game but if im going head to head, PS5 is only winning 2 to 1 for me and we're only 8 months into the generation. Due to Microsoft having 22 studios and around 35 teams, they will simply double up what Sony ends up having once it's all said and done. People say Xbox has no exclusives now but PS4 didn't have anything for me until 2016 which at that point, did anyone really care that the best exclusive launch title for PS4 was actually Resogun? Nope. No one cared because it didn't matter.
Microsoft/Spencer screwed up by depending too much on Halo Infinite but when I look at their studios, what else would they have had? Rare released Sea of Thieves in March 2018 so they weren't going to have anything ready. Undead Labs released State of Decay 2 in May 2018 so scratch them off. Turn 10 is completely rebooting Forza Motorsport and creating a new engine for this generation so eliminate them. Compulsion Games released We Happy Few in August 2018 and had to fulfill their contract with Gearbox so eliminate them. Ninja Theory had just released Hellblade on Xbox and due to Covid, just started finally doing motion capture so they were never going to have anything ready.
Playground could have maybe rushed Forza Horizon 5 but nah, let them have the extra year to make the game better instead of rushing it out. So eliminate them from 2020. Obsidian released 15 person passion project Grounded last July and in October 2019, The Outer Worlds which they finally wrapped up a few months ago with the last expansion as they had to fulfill their contract with Take Two Interactive. InXile had to release Wasteland 3 and have an expansion releasing this week and I believe they have one more to fulfill their contract so eliminate them.
Mojang does Minecraft for everything so they're a non-factor. The Initiative is barely three years old and have a ways to go so eliminate them. The Coalition released Gears 5 in September 2019 so eliminate them even though they should have had the Hivebusters expansion ready for launch as it was great but no biggie. Not going to include ZeniMax because even without a Microsoft acquisition, they weren't going to release any games for launch regardless. And 343 Industries had their delayed because it needed to be delayed.
For me, since E3 2018, I have always said 2022 before anything comes out of the studios Microsoft acquired because games don't get made over night so anything I get in the first 14 months is a bonus.
So yeah, it's disappointing but 7 months into the generation and 5 months owning a Series X (and 4 months owning a PS5), I have no issues or complaints because im still trying to wrap up the launch titles that I was already two months behind on. Plus, I still have Valhalla to go through and by the time I do that, The Ascent will be out in late July which will be my August game. October/November/December are set for me with Far Cry 6, Halo Infinite and Dying Light 2. As of now, only September is a gap which can easily be filled with the Wrath of the Druids expansion for Valhalla or Season Two of The Division 2. Either way, I will still have something to play.
Exclusives are great and all but overall, I have 4 thus far for PS5 on my list including Miles and Ratchet while I have 10 for Xbox Series X that have been announced and confirmed. So yeah, Xbox Series X launch was disappointing in this regard but they still sold out every console and continue to do so because it doesn't matter as the first 12-18 months, it's the hardcore that want to buy and own the console so it's not going to matter in the long term that they had no exclusives outside of Gears Tactics.
Should Microsoft/Spencer have been better prepared and have a backup plan or two? Absolutely but they didn't so me complaining about it isn't all of a sudden going to get me Fable or Hellblade 2 in my hands any sooner so what's even the point in doing so? I knew what the situation was going to be for at least the first 14 months but it doesn't matter for me personally because I have other games still to play and I don't want Microsoft to rush out games like they have done in the past. Let them take their time. If a game needs an extra 6 months or even a year, I hope they get it because I rather wait for a great game than get an average game earlier.
As for Halo Infinite, im expecting at least an 8/10 for me personally which is fine considering that im not a fan of the series and have never played any of them so im going in as a newbie with no expectations. The combat and gameplay looked great from last year's trailer which is what I care about the most in every game so as long as this hits for me, I will be happy.