This is not the point of discussion, we all play 3rd party games, analyzing 1st party schedule is another thing. Considering also the BIG hitters are all 1st party games, because the deals MS usually makes for GP (until now) are at best second tier AAA games (from budget and hype pov) like Outriders or ID@Xbox games, nothing of that come close to a Halo, Forza, BGS game, etc…and these are the games which will improve GP and Xbox at the end of the day. This is the point of the OT.
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It’s relevant to the continuous discussion of droughts. Third party releases supplement the first party ones.
I wonder if the PS community is as negative about lack of first party releases as the Xbox community tends to be.
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Went with an 8. If Deathloop was exclusive or at least on Xbox id go 9. I do judge based on what the studios are specifically doing for the Xbox ecosystem.
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9/10 because a goty type of game in deathloop skipped Xbox. Plus, I view output as what it does for me as a gamepass subscriber
I can already tell you based on myself and more so, my friend, the answer is no. Few reasons why - first and foremost is that for the last half decade (or over a decade if going by only Naughty Dog), Sony’s first party studios are simply proven. There’s rarely if ever any actual worries about their games being released in a bad technical state of the game is just bad.
Second is that for me and my friend, it all depends on the game itself and what it is. For example, we both own a PS5 and XSX. Neither of us care or have interest in Flight Simulator, Deathloop, Psychonauts 2 or Forza Horizon 5 but are both day one for Horizon Forbidden West which in all honestly, for both us is far superior to any of those four games because it caters to what we want.
Third is that even when there’s a gap like now for PS5 which would be 8 months between Ratchet and HFW, it doesn’t matter because based on reason #1, when the next game does release, we both know we’re getting an easy 9.5/10 or even a 10/10 game. If there was no HFW and it was just Gran Turismo 7, neither of us would give a shit and be like, this drought sucks because neither of us care about GT 7.
Of course, it also depends on if there’s third party multi-platform games. The last game my friend played and completed was RE 8 in August/September. He played Far Cry 6 and GOTG for maybe an hour or less of each and shipped them right back to GameFly because for him, they just weren’t up to par and he’s not all that interested in GOTG and knows that FC 6 isn’t as good as FC 4 which is the only FC game he completed. So he’s going basically 6 months give or take since completing RE 8 and what will be his next completed game in HFW.
For me, I play more games than my friend does but it’s also because I have much more free time to do so and because of that, the PS5 exclusive drought hasn’t been bad at all because I have had other third party games to play and complete. And if I had PS5 exclusives that aren’t from Sony’s internal studios, I had Kena in September before FC 6 so no worries in regards to a drought.
For XSX, the drought after Halo Infinite to who knows when and what game doesn’t matter as much to me for the same reason - im going to have plenty of multi-platform games to play that will keep me busy and occupied while waiting for Microsoft’s next exclusive that I actually want to play.
Once Microsoft continues nailing the quality aspect of their exclusives which they’ve already started doing this past summer, I believe that the majority of the Xbox community won’t care as much as they do now if there’s a drought because they would be proven and when the next exclusive does release, they know they will be getting an excellent game.
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While I agree, look at how the XGS releases this year have reviewed. Perhaps this run isn’t long enough, or it’s the genres of the games.
The run is only 6 months and the genres aren’t for everyone. Including AOE IV (even though it’s PC only right now), only 1 out of 6 first party games were for me. The other 5 I have zero interest in.
However, them scoring between 83 (AOE4) and 92 (FH5/FS) makes someone like me very happy because it shows the improvement in their quality and not releasing subpar under 70 rated games. Even if it’s games I have zero interest in, I want to see high scores and see the majority of the gamers agree because that tells me the focal point is on quality and when the games I DO care about get released, they should be of high quality.
People have to remember that Xbox One for tens of millions of people wasn’t great, myself included and if you compare it to Xbox 360, it becomes even more disappointing. So for me, Gears 3 was the last excellent game for me and that released in 2011. Gears 4 was great and Gears 5 was better but excluding them, I had nothing on Xbox One that was worth bragging about. You then add in what Sony (and Nintendo for that matter) are releasing and it’s like, yeah, it’s going to take time to get back to what they were during Xbox 360.
Since E3 2018, I have always looked at 2022 as being “the year” that Microsoft finally gets back to where they were over a decade earlier. They’ve had an excellent second half of 2021 in general but the drought isn’t going to help and people do have short memories. Like sports, it’s all about what have you done for me lately?
By 2023, there shouldn’t be any more droughts and Microsoft should be able to release a first party exclusive every quarter that is of high quality. For this generation, as long as Microsoft doesn’t rush out a game, im not expecting any exclusive from them to be under an 80 and those that are an 80 or low 80’s will be like Age of Empires or Gears Tactics where they’re great for the hardcore fans that love those games but simply aren’t for the majority.
Regardless, the quality is going to be there and that’s why I stopped complaining because since July, the quality has been there so even though the majority of the games haven’t been for me, I can’t complain because they’re finally doing what I have been wanting to do and now especially, expecting them to do - release high quality games and if a game truly isn’t ready, delay it until it is or very close to being so.
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I’m torn on this. They released so many great new games or expansions/ports in H2 of 2021, but NOTHING before E3. And it’s looking like 2022 will be the same thing.
I guess I’d say an 8/10? Maybe 8.5? If the cadence was more consistent, easily a 9 or 10.
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It’s going to be so boring playing Tunic, Stalker 2, CrossfireX and Darktide during the H1 drought next year. 
None of those are Xbox first-party titles, which is what this thread is about.
Save your cheap shots for another thread.
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This thread is about output as far as I can tell, not necessarily cadence. If we’re going to discuss release droughts then we should at least reasonably contextualize it with the fact that Xbox is securing exclusives and significant Game Pass deals between first-party releases.
I’m totally in the camp that Xbox needs to do a better job of spreading their titles out, but there is something silly about compartmentalizing games between first-party and exclusive when they ostensibly serve the same purpose.
No cheap shots here, homie. Just a little sarcasm.