The Xbox One Problem

The Xbox One has a problem- you know it, I know it, everyone knows it.

It's not just one problem, either- everything from the console's hardware resources to its third party support, and more, is in question right now. But I am not going to make this thread about any of those problems and issues- they have been discussed at length before, often in discussions initiated by me.

The point of discussion here is the simple fact that thus far, no single Xbox One exclusive has actually managed to live up to the hype.

Now, this discussion is a very unfavorable one for Xbox to begin with, since the console has very few true exclusives- but if one were to wrangle with the definition of the word to include a lot of other games, you still end up with games that have, on the whole, failed. Not failed at being good games- I think in general, the Xbox One lineup has been good. But failed at being truly 'great,' at capturing the imagination of gamers and the media worldwide to get the kind of unanimous praise and attention that Xbox exclusives of the past used to.

Put simply, the Xbox One has not yet had its Halo or Gears of War or Mass Effect moment- every exclusive game it has received has been good- but that's about it. There's nothing great, nothing system selling, nothing to expand the appeal of the console beyond the initial Xbox fanbase, nothing to excite the imagination.

Just have a look at this:

• Forza has seen a comedown from its Xbox 360 heyday- from a high of consistent 90+ Metascores (Forza 3 and 4 were 92 and 91 respectively) to a low of 79 on the Xbox One (though I suppose Forza 6 is at least 87). Very important here is the fact that Forza was never a big seller, but it had its place as a prestige franchise- however, with declining critical scores and excitement for the games thanks to the predictable bi-annual cycle, it seems to be losing even that sheen.
• Halo is the biggest casualty- we went from a high of 94 down to 85. That's 10 points in Metascore, almost- but in terms of review scores, Halo is still doing great, if not excellent like it used to be. However, the brand has gone from being the prestige shooter synonymous with console FPSs, and an industry defining event, to a run of the mill shooter. It has lost popularity immensely, to the point that where Halo 2 and Halo 3 set industry wide records when it came to sales, Halo 5, a numbered entry, failed to stay in software charts, failed to boost Xbox One hardware sales, and failed to sell much itself- Microsoft even refuses to confirm any sales numbers for the game beyond just 1 million shipped worldwide. 1 million- that's what Halo has been reduced to. Of course, the elephant in the room here is the Master Chief Collection, but the less said about that disaster, the better.
• Fable was canceled on Xbox One, so this isn't even a comparison.
• Gears of War has gone from consistent 90+ Metascores to 82- and like Halo, it is struggling to excite on a commercial or perception based level.
• Quantum Break would be directly comparable to Alan Wake- like Alan Wake, Quantum Break has seen a decline in terms of its critical reception. Its final sales potential remains to be seen, but it has put a dampener in terms of Remedy's perception as a prestige studio, which was a narrative often cited by Xbox fans.
• Let's consider some other Xbox One games- Sunset Overdrive: good, but not great, Metascores, flopped at retail. Ryse: Son of Rome: Horrific scores, poor sales performance. Killer Instinct: to the best of my knowledge, this game has largely done well for what it is, though it still continues to have the smallest pool of fighters at EVO every year, indicating a small community. Rise of the TombRaider received rave reviews, and then went on to sell a million copies worldwide across two platforms, before jumping ship to non Xbox platforms not even three months after its launch. Titanfall was never exclusive to begin with, though it did do well in the end, so there is that.

But have you noticed this trend? Xbox One games aren't doing too well- by most standards, they are falling behind their Xbox 360 counterparts, where applicable, or just failing to meet expectations in other cases. They are doing poorly by all metrics- by their total sales, by their review scores, by awards won, by public perception. I am sure that I will get some Xbox fans telling me in this thread that they enjoyed Quantum Break or Halo 5, and why should they care? But that's not the point here- I enjoy playing through Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, doesn't make that a not shitty game. You enjoying or not enjoying a game is independent of the facts, and the facts are clear- Xbox's lineup is disappointing on all fronts.

So... what's going on? Here we have a console which is weaker than the competition, with less support from third parties, meaning literally the only reason to buy it is the exclusives. Now, it's not like Xbox One has any true exclusives- it shares most, if not all outright, of its exclusives with some other platform- mostly PC. The few 'exclusives' it does get seem to be failing to excite on the most fundamental levels, good enough to cater to the people who already bought the Xbox, but hardly worth anything to sell it to a wider audience. Those exclusives too, incidentally, play better on PC, which adds insult to injury, but that's not the point here- the Xbox One being weaker than any other high end system has been long established. Instead the point is that on a first party/exclusives front, the Xbox One has, incredibly enough, managed to end up in an even worse spot than it was in a few months ago- and as most people will attest to, it was pretty damn bad a few months ago to begin with.

@charizard1605:

Just Bottomline this whole thing and say this gen sucks.

@PSP107: I will not do that because I don't think the problem is with this generation- every other system this generation has managed to put forth a widely acclaimed 'signature' game, even the goddamn Vita has managed to do it.

Every system except for the Xbox One. The problem is with that specific console, twisting the narrative to 'all consoles suck' doesn't shield the Xbox One from where it has obviously gone wrong, it just makes you disingenuous.

My ony gripe with your post is that you say Drake's Fortune is a shitty game when it has an 88 metascore. That goes directly against the of rest of post where your post when you say individual opinion does not outweigh the mass reception.

Can't wait to see how Lems spin the rest though.

Eh- Drake's Fortune was a fairly good game for its time. For its time. Today, it is outright a bad game- it has bad shooting, bad platforming, bad combat and encounter design, and it doesn't even tell its story well, which at least managed to redeem Uncharted 3, which is the other Uncharted game I didn't like.

The 88 Metascore stands for its time- today, the game wouldn't pass muster.

@ConanTheStoner: Shitty. My tablet auto-corrected and I had to edit the grammar too.

@charizard1605: 'every other system this generation has managed to put forth a widely acclaimed 'signature' game,"

Interested to know each system signature game.

I played Uncharted 1 finally as I never did in PS3. It was good and I'll take it over 3 anyday.

Well tell your tablet I said thanks, I had fun trying to read that lol.

@PSP107: Bayonetta 2 for Wii U and Bloodborne for PS4.

PS4 has Bloodborne, WiiU and PC are take your pick.

Part of the drop in quality of exclusives is also due to the fact that Bungie isn't making Halo and Epic isn't making Gears. Taking the reigns of big franchises is a difficult task for any studio. From the get-go, it looked awful on Microsoft's part to have a system that costed more and was less powerful than the competition. They've been on a streak of losses this gen. For some reason console manufacturers think that they know better than the consumers on what the consumers want :P (Sony did something similar last gen and as a result the PS3 had a terrible start).

Sooooo in other words.....xbox has no games.

Wii U: Bayonetta 2
PS4: Bloodborne
PC: Too many to pick at this point, let's go with Stardew Valley for this year
3DS: The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
PSV: Persona 4 Golden

What does the Xbox One have? It has no game even remotely fitting the extended definition of an exclusive that scored over a 90 on Metacritic and was widely acclaimed.

In Xbox one's defense, the Microsoft exclusives that go to PC will be better played on the console because their windows 10 store sucks so much and probably won't get better.

And once again Scalebound is its only chance at having that must have game. Which, bugs me because I don't want to buy that console just for that game, and if it comes to PC it'll be tied to that shitty store.

If it weren't for them being the only competition to Sony atm, I wouldn't care if they just dropped out.

in other words, X1 sucks :P

Damn, all of this lol.

Especially the last bit. We need MS to keep that fire lit under Sonys ass, but otherwise it's just meh.

To be honest, I never understood the argument that Remedy is a prestige studio. I know that they're a good studio, they've made some great games like Alan Wake and Max Payne, but I wouldn't call that prestigious. It certainly doesn't put them on par with other studios such as Bioware, Rockstar, Naughty Dog, Platinum, From Soft, etc. who have made numerous classics.

Especially since they haven't made a good Max Payne game in a really long time. Max Payne 2 came out 13 years ago. So that really just leaves Alan Wake.

The weird thing is that they seem to have the best marketing for games. I could be wrong but I feel like I see a lot more Xbox marketing than PlayStation. Well, at least traditional marketing like television commercials and in-store stuff.

Sunset Overdrive almost was a great game to me but I didn't like the control placement and being forced to literally grind around the entire game. It had great marketing though with an exclusive bundle, in-store promotion, promotion at events, etc.

I think the reason why they don't have the key game is because they don't seem to care about having first party developers.

None of their upcoming games look like they are gonna change this either while PlayStation has Uncharted 4 and Horizon: Zero Dawn coming out this year and Nintendo will probably have some good titles for the NX.

Does PS4 really have better games overall though? Putting aside fanboyism and general MS hate for 2 seconds, how much better really is PS4's lineup? Besides Bloodborne (which lets face it, isn't everyone's cup of tea ), what else does it have that's better than what XB1 has?

I know I'm just going to be labelled a "lem" for going against the grain, but oh well.

@Chozofication: Not really- even with those UWP restrictions, the PC versions will be better, if only for the higher resolutions and more controller support. That, plus Microsoft are promising to open up UWP a bit, so you know- the PC versions will always be better.

I'm going to play the "salty guy" here and say that Forza Horizon 2 deserves a 90+ meta score, no other open world racer matches it and it has everything from Graphics, gameplay, sound, handling, multiplayer, skins, car upgrades, many many more, and does these all superbly. I have a feeling Xbox One is massively underrated in the games department, Halo 5 is the best console fps multiplayer on the planet as well, with continued quality support.

The system has great games and a few deserve a spot in the 90+ score board, but like my opinion here, other opinions go against what I just typed, and that's fine, I enjoy most Xbox One game and think the system is amazing.

@sts106mat: "Not everyone likes the same things."

I was going to mentioned that as my point.

@hrt_rulz01: PS4 exclusives have a higher average rating than Xbox One exclusives on Metacritic. Whether you like those games is up to you.

Quantum break seems to be a cruddy port that dips to 20fps on a gtx 980 at times, and you can't disable that temporal reconstruction stuff so you're not really getting the benefits of higher resolutions. There's no option to quit the game in menu, graphics are largely the same ; that is one low effort port.

And you can never rule out future PC ports being bad, i.e. Scalebound so I wouldn't count on anything. Kamiya's team might not bother handling the port like they didn't with Bayonetta Ps3 and it could be a real shit show.

We'll see, I really am pulling for the store to get better and that Scalebound is a good port but i'm not holding my breath.

@Chozofication: yet there are people playing it on 970 and not getting dips to 20, I dont get that that kind of dips on 1440p on 980ti

and I'm not saying it's a good port because it isnt, but not everyone is having these problems

If Metacritic is a joke why is it used so widely even has performance bonuses attached to it? You are salty the scores for Xbox this generation. Get over it.

I can't play metacritic scores. I've had a blast with Forza Horizon 2, Titanfall, Tomb Raider, Halo, Ori and Sunset Overdrive this gen.

@charizard1605: An interesting read as usual from you bud. You are one of my favorite posters/thread creators here who seems to take care to think out the proposed conversation piece.

That said I don't give a rat's testicles to what Metacritic, Opencritic, Gamerankings, Super Duper grandma gamer, Twitch views, or any of these sources say. I play games that caintaocritic wishes to, with caine's money and time and friends.

Here are some facts

Does the XB1 have a 90+ exclusive? No

Does the XB1 have the pinnacle of several genre's on it's system? YES

The Xbox One has the best multiplayer shooter on consoles in Halo 5 where as the PS4 has crap like Star Wars Battlefront, Destiny and BLOPS3 which are all multiplat BTW. The PS4 doesn't have a good exclusive shooter let alone a good MP one

Gears of War 4 is another one, even if it doesn't live up to Gears 1-3 it'll still be a better multiplayer experience than anything available on the PS4

Forza, both Forza and Horizon, the best damn racing games on the market and that includes PC. Playstation hasn't had a good exclusive racing game since Gran Turismo 3 which was 15 YEARS AGO. Drive Club was a miserable failure and an abomination of a game

Ori and the Blind Forest, a better platformer than anything the PS4 has to offer

Killer Instinct Season 2 and 3 are BETTER than Street Failure V which flopped hard. KI Season 2 has a higher MC score than both SFV and Guilty Gear

Sunset Overdrive is BETTER than Infamous Second Son and had a great multiplayer component

Xbox One has a MUCH better online service despite the few hiccups it's had recently (just like PSN did back in Jan) dedicated servers and features and a much better social interface (16 player parties now) where as PSN is just NOW getting features from the year 2006 that XBL had for over a decade now and is using P2P servers in the year 2016

Here's where the PS4 excels at

JRPG's (non existent on the XB aside from Square games and maybe Scalebound)

Sports (MLB the Show 14)

Action/Adventure games (, Bloodborne, Uncharted and most likely Horizon)

The XB1 has problems, it also has more going for it than the PS4 does.

Good point. And how could the mass reception outweigh the individual opinion? The masses of gaming media aren't buying the individual any consoles or games. It all comes down to individual opinion in subjective entertainment.

@StrongBlackVine: That may be the case, but those ratings are based on opinions. Games mean different things to different people. I personally would take Sunset Overdrive over something like Bloodborne any day.

And to say that XB1's games haven't met the so-called hype, again, maybe those games did live up to some people's expectations. To put a blanket label over all XB1's games and say they are basically a failure compared to PS4's, based on review scores and averages on freakin Metacritic, is ridiculous.

But anyway, simply, I prefer XB1's games. I guess some people can't/don't understand that. Oh well. Don't really care.

@cainetao11: Thanks bud, and thanks for a well reasoned response as usual!

As I said, I am not in any way making a judgement call on people playing the games they want to play- plus realistically, the Xbox One has enough games that the average gamer will buy it and have enough to be happy with (realistically even the Vita and Wii U have enough games for the average gamer to never go through all of them, contrary to SW's assertions, really).

My question towards the console is more targeted at the larger, company side of things- why is it that Microsoft have so far failed to have their Gears of War/Halo/Mass Effect moment with the Xbox One? That is the question I mean to ask, without necessarily getting into whether or not the games themselves are fun to play.

I never said that Xbox One's games were failure. The PS4 games rating is only slightly ahead of Xbox One any way. But what is interesting about that is the narrative that was being pushed that Xbox One had all these great exclusives and PS4 exclusives were crap in comparison.

That narrative has clearly been abandoned now that PS4 is and will continue to take a dump on Xbox One in 2016 games. No one can look at you with a straight face and say Xbox One has a better lineup this year. The most hyped Xbox "exclusive" just scored a 78. Phil can only hope for no more disappointments now.

Let me guess True exclusives will only exist until PS4.5 comes out. Then the PS4 will have none.

No one is saying all Xbox One games are failures- what is being said, very clearly, is that Microsoft have so far failed to have that one system defining exclusive game of the sort that they have managed to get with ease before, or that all the other systems this generation have already. We are saying that the Xbox One lineup is faltering next to the Xbox 360 lineup, and definitely next to the exclusive lineup of the other systems. We are not even passing value judgements on how enjoyable a game is, we are just assessing a game based on empirical metrics, and trying to assess where Microsoft may have gone wrong, and why.

It's a discussion about a gaming company's games on its gaming system on a gaming forum. It's a discussion steeped in the very obvious question- why are Microsoft's games unable to be met with the kind of reception that their PlayStation and Nintendo counterparts are?

Most people don't have the time and/or money to play every game that looks mildly appealing. Metacritic is useful for narrowing down your options. I don't think any one buys strictly based on score so whole premise is faulty. FIFA could score a 99 and I wouldn't buy it.

As I said in reference to Remedy in one of these QB threads, I think the developers of the games really tried to make the best games they could. I doubt very highly the Remedy, the Coalition, 343, Turn 10 or any dev addresses their staff with "hey team lets get to work and shoot for a 65-85 on metacritic". I doubt many say lets shoot for a 90-100 on meta either. Doing things like this is creating for someone else's approval. Does any creative person or artist hope their work is appreciated? I would bet so. Is that the motivation to do what they do? Not for the one's I've read about and worked with.

I truly believe that the devs have tried to make the best games they could. I also believe that reviewers have their own preferences and biases as most of us do. I remember last year on The Lobby just before E3 asking the guests what they hope to see at E3. And the renowned VanOrd was one of them. When O'Donnell got to MS the look on his face, although subtle, seemed to indicate that he just didn't care what or whether they were going to do a conference. And that's cool, its his right to preference and maybe I'm wrong. But I agree with @sailor232 in that there are great games on the system whether the mass gaming media has received them as such. And as some alt or new user said, they do have the best in a couple of genre's on their console. FPS with Halo 5 and open world racer with FH2. Nothing Sony or Nintendo has come up with is better imo. You may say Splatoon and although a fun game, it isn't the same as a serious competitive console FPS.

@charizard1605: It probably has at least something to do with the general hate that's out there for XB1 and MS this gen... would the games have been better received if XB1 was more popular? Maybe.

And I also think the fact that the most of XB1's exclusives are heading to PC as well doesn't help. A lot of Xbox fans aren't happy (which I still don't really get).

why has sony?

@charizard1605: Just a heads up, Halo 5 is an 84/100 at Metacritic.

The only problem the Xbox One has is topics like this creating problems where there is none, you're hamstringing the scores video games get too much into the personal enjoyment you can possibly find in them.

Bloodborne? It got a 92, it's the PlayStation 4's "system defining game" and I greatly dislike, as I do for all the other Souls games, they're just not for me and you need to come to terms with only 1/20th of the PlayStation 4 community owning it, how many of them do you think like it? But you know what? Quantum Break I've had a blast with, The Order: 1886? It has a 63 and I found it great, I know you remember my thread about it...

You people focus too much on what other people think rather than using your own brains to play and figure out if you like something or not. A console doesn't need A "system defining game", it needs YOUR "system defining game"...

Get fucking real.

@dynamitecop: Well said.