Microsoft shot themselves in the foot at E3 2013 and it's amazing that I see some who actually wanted that. LOL. If all those RESTRICTIONS would have went through and stayed intact throughout, Xbox One would be in third place behind Wii U. It was all of those restrictions that allowed Sony to dominate them and outsell them two to one.
I preferred Xbox 360 over PlayStation 3 but.....Kinect, $500, console looks like a damn VCR, the interface is ugly, slow and horrible, always online, digital only, no used games, etc. Microsoft made the decision for me.
Phil Spencer turned it around. He eliminated Kinect which lets be honest, should have been put out to pasture before the launch of Xbox One. He lowered the price to be competitive. Gave us backwards compatibility, an elite controller, monthly updates, etc.
However, in all of that good stuff, it's still missing the most important aspect - good or better exclusives. Even more so than that, single player exclusives. Majority of the exclusives are all centered around online multi-player which I have no interest in whatsoever. And the one pure single player game that Microsoft gave me was a disappointment in Quantum Break (7/10 imo).
Even worse, outside of Halo, Gears and Forza, Microsoft should just quit making exclusives and new IP's for one simple reason - no one buys them. Even Xbox One only owners don't buy them let alone those who own both Xbox One and PS4.
Some of their exclusives have been good but they simply don't sell and the reason they don't sell to gamers like me is simple - they're not appealing at all and/or focused and centered around online multi-player.
Microsoft doesn't have any first party studios that are even close to Sony's. Even Guerrilla Games (which I would rank as fourth out of their first parties) is better than their number one first party. Halo is Halo. Gears is Gears. Forza is Forza. Like Madden, you can skip a game or two, come back and not miss a beat.
Now that Uncharted is done as is Infamous and Killzone (at least by Sucker Punch and Guerrilla Games anyway), Sony's first parties can work on new IP's that cater to the PlayStation fan base and that's kick ass single player story driven games.
The only IP that's still around is God of War but it's being completely done over and will feel like something new compared to the previous games. When has Microsoft ever done this? It's just the same damn thing every generation.
Microsoft is still doing great and outpacing Xbox 360 so they're obviously doing some things correctly. Hell, I bought an Xbox One last November for ROTTR and it was easily worth the purchase. Bought and completed Quantum Break and it was solid 7/10 but nothing special. In ten months, only two games have been played on Xbox One.
Despite that, I traded it in and purchased an Xbox One Slim (which by the way is probably what the console should have been three years ago, oh well) the other day because im waiting to play ReCore and Gears of War 4. Also, I want to play Ryse (yeah, yeah) and Ori. After these four games though, I have interest in only one Xbox One exclusive and that's State of Decay 2.
Other than that, there's no other exclusives that interest me as of now. On PS4, there's exclusives that I want to play in 2017 and 2018 already. Maybe even 2019. For me, Xbox One just doesn't have that nor do they have the single player games and genres that I prefer. In the end, it's just the same damn thing. Halo, Gears and Forza. Gears is the only one im interested in.
In summary, for me, it's all about the games and single player focused games at that. Between PSN/Indies, exclusives and of course, third party games, Sony gives me a lot more of what I want in gaming with PS4 than Microsoft does with Xbox One.
Finally, I agree with Colin Moriarty in regards to Xbox One Scorpio. While I do believe that it will play all Xbox One games, I don't believe for one minute that this isn't Microsoft's next console that kicks off the ninth generation. To be held back by Xbox One would be stupid and dumbfounded.
Crackdown 3 should be a Scorpio exclusive that shows gamers why you not only should but want to move on to the next generation. With all of that said, I still prefer to own both consoles as im a gamer first and foremost. It's just that for various reasons, I game more on PS4 than I do on Xbox One.
