Yes, I know this is a decoy, console war title, but honestly, if I just write “Xbox is a good choice this holiday”, you won’t click.
Xbox as a platform ushered in for a while. Although the large releases at the beginning of this year were pretty barren, the fact that everyone wanted to launch shiny new games for their next-generation consoles magnified this, but it has been wonderful since the summer.
In late July, the flight simulator landed on Xbox, bringing their first “wow” exclusive to the X and S series. Of course, it also landed on the first day of Game Pass.
Psychonauts 2 is a true contender of the year and made a deep impression at the end of August. Xbox players cannot claim the exclusivity of this game, it will also land on the PlayStation platform, but this is another excellent Game Pass first day game.
In October, “Back 4 Blood” arrived on the first day of Game Pass, which is a big gain for services that don’t usually provide such large third-party AAA games.
Then the big dog rolled into the city. Forza Horizon 5, GTA San Andreas from the new enhanced GTA Trilogy, and Halo Infinite will land on Xbox and Game Pass in November and December.
I am not exaggerating the claim that Forza Horizon 5 will be one of the top three games this year. This is an incredible game, and it feels like it attracts more new audiences than ever before.
“Grand Theft Auto San Andreas” is an excellent game pass, and Halo Infinite is likely to beat Horizon 5 and become the largest release in the history of Xbox Game Studios. Have you played the Halo Infinite beta? Halo is back, and may return in a very big way.
Since the summer, games like “Rally Art”, “12 Minutes”, “Clever Escape”, “Sable”, “Football Manager 2022” and “Skyrim” (with free new generation updates) have been added, Six months have passed since Xbox and Game Pass.
This is not to say that PS5 does not have some good games this year. Returnal, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, Death Loop, and Kena: Bridge of Spirits are all excellent, but Death Loop is required to complete a lot of heavy work this holiday, and it simply cannot be done alone.
In an industry where everyone is looking for the next exciting new thing, there is no doubt that Xbox’s PlayStation beat this holiday, and Game Pass makes the platform more affordable (though I won’t say cheap, looking for Before the transaction, even the S series would cost £250, and Game Pass Ultimate would cost £11 per month).
Xbox hasn’t fully fulfilled its promise, the blockbuster AAA exclusive game we took for granted on PlayStation, but it’s already there-although it may be a bit afraid of the triple blow of Horizon Ban West, Gran Turismo 7, and Ragnarok coming next year. Then there are Forspoken and Ghostwire: Tokyo in terms of known third-party exclusive products.
This Christmas, Xbox must make full use of its advantages. If Halo and Forza and a series of excellent Game Pass games cannot beat Sony’s non-existent holiday lineup, then Xbox is likely to remain in the shadow of Sony throughout this generation of consoles.
Will you “join” as marketers say? Let us know in the comments. Or tell me what I am wrong, PS5 is great (I didn’t say it is not).