If E3 proved anything to fans it is that Microsoft has truly begun to make an effort to fix a series of horrible mistakes.
Lets do a quick recap of the past two years. Microsoft begun E3 2013 with displaying their brand new Xbox One and to many gamers dismay, they really only focused on what the Xbox One could do and not the games. Fans took that message and turned it into a hate storm of anti-Microsoft and thus the PlayStation began to overtake the Xbox platform.
In a few short months following E3 2013, Sony released the PS4 to record sales while the Xbox One dwindled due to lack of focus and lack of content.
Fast-forward a year and now both consoles have relatively the same number of exclusives and many games have come out for both platforms; Now Microsoft is still 4-5 million consoles behind but making a push with new content and different features the PlayStation didn’t offer. Microsoft couldn’t express what those features were but assured us change was coming.
Now lets get to the E3 that matters, E3 2015.
If you live under a rock, you probably don’t own a gaming console but for those that are under that rock, let me give you a quick recap of this years E3… Bethesda came out and destroyed the competition with a great display of Doom and Fallout 4. Then Microsoft followed up with that hype with the announcement of backwards compatibility on the Xbox One. EA came out and showed us why everyone hates them and then Ubisoft proved they still cared by giving us fun new IP’s. Sony finished the Day Zero presentations with a great display of games and new information.
So there you have it, the quick recap of the month with a bunch of generalizations.
Microsoft, in one word, won. E3 was their show and they proved to everyone what they have next is clearly the way to go. Xbox fans have been waiting for this E3 showing and it proved to us that Microsoft is clearly trying to win us back after a rough few years with the Xbox One. Oh, did I mention the Xbox One will be getting a completely redesigned UI as well? Well it’s coming and it is beautiful.
So all of these things Microsoft did, are they ready to take back the throne as the king of console gaming?
Not so fast.
Sony still holds the lead and it is not looking like they will give up at any point. Sony as a company might not do well in and out but they certainly have a strong gaming division lead by some great people. Everyone really needs to give credit to the Sony engineering team as the PS4 is a great console that works much better and faster than the Xbox One to date.
I am almost completely surprised that with the announcement of the 1 TB console drives for the Xbox One, Microsoft didn’t announce a beefier Xbox One. It could have Microsoft’s chance to prove to everyone, even those who defected to Sony, that they can still compete with the console’s hardware.
But Microsoft has the software now.
Don’t get me wrong. Sony certainly won in the eyes of millions with the announcement that the PS4 is now the home to the timed exclusives for the Call of Duty franchise but all that does is cater to a specific set of gamers. Granted that set of gamers is in the tens of millions but it certainly doesn’t lead to any new IP’s that could change the game. As it is, Black Ops III looks like Titanfall 2 to me.
Sony’s ability to get new exclusives every year certainly help them but where Microsoft shined was on the Xbox 360 and by providing backwards compatibility to the Xbox One console, gamers will be allowed to return to the glory days of Xbox and that will make millions of people happy without having to switch back and forth for the consoles.
The idea alone makes me giddy as it will provide me a portal, literally, back to the games I loved and as a new achievement hunter, it allows me to go back and get all of that glorious gamerscore I missed in the past.
Since the idea of this article is a simple one, let us give it a simple answer… Yes. Microsoft is ready to take back the lead in console gaming.
Discounting the millions of things that could go wrong in the next few months, Microsoft set themselves up for victory as their software and gaming announcements have proved that they are working much harder than expected to go back and retain that lead.
We won’t have any idea of how successful Microsoft was until the next few months when console sales reports are released but I have a feeling that Microsoft will lead June console sales.
Now that the simple answer is yes, what is the real question?
Will they? Won’t they? Why wouldn’t they be ready?
Well the simple answer to that is they have already messed up.
Microsoft, in their brilliance already messed up the Xbox One. Almost to the brink of losing a fan base entirely. All Microsoft had to do at the start of the Xbox One’s life cycle is release it with a faster Xbox 360 UI and not mess up any of the presentations and they did that immediately.
So what confidence do I have in Microsoft? Absolutely none.
With all of the fan boy glory being spread over this article about Microsoft, I still don’t believe they will retake the lead in consoles for this generation.
Backwards compatibility is entirely up to the developer so if the developer doesn’t allow their games on the portal for the old games, then we will never be able to play them. That seems like a glaring statement left out by Microsoft. Along with this, Microsoft doesn’t really seem to have anymore brand new huge exclusives like they used to. Certainly Halo will keep their heads above water but I don’t see where the new gamer content is coming.
Don’t get me wrong, I will keep my Xbox One and continue to amass gamerscore, but Sony has the better console and until Microsoft releases a console that compares with the PS4, Microsoft is losing and will continue to lose.
So here is to more years of PS4 leading the charge of console gaming that is still leagues behind PC gaming. If Microsoft can hang their hat on anything, it is that even though the Xbox One might still be losing, they still own controlling interest in PC gaming and many people seem to forget that.
So play on gamers. Enjoy whatever console you’d like but be aware of what is happening. Microsoft has put themselves in a position to retake the console lead. And without the overwhelming support from the PlayStation division inside of Sony, we might see the sale of the PlayStation division from the sinking ship that is Sony as a whole.
I don’t think that will happen and I don’t think the Xbox One will retake the lead but hey, it is worth watching!
