This Could Be Best Year for Games Since 2007, Xbox Dev Says

2015 could be the best year in gaming in terms of high-profile new releases since 2007. That's according to Xbox product manager Patrick Perkins, who also said that Microsoft's own lineup for this year is stacked.

"Before we even launched the Xbox One, we knew that this was the year," Perkins said during the GameStop Expo livestream today. "You just look at the development cycles and when everything's going to come together."

Perkins compared the holiday 2015/early 2016 season to that of holiday 2007/early 2008. He pointed out that games like BioShock, Halo 3, Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect, Rock Band, and Grand Theft Auto IV were all released in that time. He didn't mention them by name, but Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Crysis, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Portal, Super Mario Galaxy, and The Witcher were also released in 2007.

He described this period as the "golden era of games," but went on to say that holiday 2015 and early 2016 could "actually surpass that."

Big-name Microsoft games coming this year include Halo 5: Guardians, Rise of the Tomb Raider, and Forza Motorsport 6. Some major multiplatform games due out in the holiday 2015/early 2016 window include Call of Duty: Black Ops III, Fallout 4, Dark Souls III, and Star Wars Battlefront.

"It's a lot," Perkins said, pointing out that holiday 2015 is the Xbox One's third holiday. Holiday 2007, meanwhile, was the Xbox 360's third holiday season.

"The third year is when developers starting to understand what the new technology can do," he said, noting that at the start of a console generation, things sometime begin with a "slow ramp up."

"But we are firmly there right now," Perkins said.

For more on the best years in gaming, check out GameSpot's roundup here.