Two days removed from Microsoft’s big Xbox Series X first party game showcase and reaction to the presentation has been a mixed bag. Reviews and pieces about reaction at Digital Foundry, Kotaku and Metro among others have gone into the issues.
One recurring meme has drawn some unflattering comparisons between the “Halo Infinite” gameplay shown and how graphics wise it compares poorly to some other FPS titles like PS4 launch title “Killzone Shadow Fall” from seven years ago or even “Halo” itself with “Halo: Reach” from the Master Chief Collection looking better in some ways. Digital Foundry has done a great piece explaining why people were underwhelmed.
Another complaint is the lack of console sales-generating AAA exclusives like “Spider-Man: Miles Morales” or “Horizon: Forbidden West” which the PS5 presentation had. Similarly there’s been criticism about too frequent use of cinematics (a complaint levelled at PS5’s presentation as well) and how the games, having been designed to play on both Xbox One X and Series X, are being ‘held back’ by the slower console.
At the same time other parts have drawn praise with “Fable” in particular very well received, while “Avowed” also generated good notices from the reaction pieces we’ve looked at.
Several others like Polygon and CNet have pointed out that the big story of the conference is being overshadowed – namely that of GamePass. While the presentation’s push of the Series X may not have landed like Microsoft had hoped, its pushing of its GamePass subscription service appears to be an unqualified success.
Praise is unanimous regarding the value of the proposition that all the games shown during the presentation will be made available at launch on the already well-established GamePass service costing just $10-15 a month for both Xbox consoles and PC.
It’s a bold move as well – suggesting Microsoft has no issue ‘losing’ the console war because that is no longer its focus and so Series X sales don’t matter so much because it’s all about its service rather than its hardware.
This makes its consoles merely non-PC entry points into the larger arena of game subscription services where GamePass dominates with over ten million subscribers as of April and very strong word of mouth. Like Netflix, GamePass is less about releasing a few massive AAA game titles per year and more about locking people into an ecosystem with sustained and diverse slate of new content that only has to hit gold enough that people will keep their subscription.
The downside is it makes the proposition of forking out money for a Series X upgrade less of an enticing proposition if your PC or One X will play all the same titles even if it’s just at a lower resolution.
Both Sony and Microsoft are expected to have further presentations in coming weeks with release dates and prices hopefully being announced.
