Xbox Series X and S two years later: where is the next generation?

Xbox Series X and S two years later

In the fall of 2021 Forza Horizon 5 left everyone speechless, appearing as the great promise of Microsoft's new course in terms of first party video games released. Shortly thereafter, the best arcade racing game ever made was followed by the launch of another hit, Halo Infinite which, despite having stood the test of time, especially because of how post-launch updates were handled, was welcomed. generally very well and made a lot of talk about himself.

Despite a slow start, the Xbox Series X and S were getting into gear. Microsoft was not really doing anything wrong: excellent and well-supported consoles with different prices to suit all budgets; a subscription service, the Xbox Game Pass, which aroused more and more interest in the public and obtained approval from anyone who tried it and finally massive titles to give prestige to the entire ecosystem. 2022 had also started really well, either because of the announcement of the acquisition attempt of Activision Blizzard King for about 69 billion dollars, which followed the successful acquisition of Bethesda, or because it was still the year of Starfield and Redfall and you want because there was still time for more video game announcements coming out later this year. So it's really weird to have to wonder where the new generation is two years after the Xbox Series X and S were released.

Flat calm

A Forza Horizon 5 was missing in 2022 of Xbox Series X and S Xbox seemed to be able to do only well, following the positive wave created by the hard work of Phil Spencer and his over the course of about five years. Instead the car seems to have run aground in part. Not irremediably, but there has certainly been a brake on general enthusiasm, so much so that the entire ecosystem, including consoles, is coming with very short breath to Christmas 2022. The goal of following an excellent 2021, an excellent 2022 in videogame terms it has been thwarted by the aforementioned postponements of Starfield and Redfall and by an unexpected adverse effect of the aforementioned multi-billion dollar acquisition: to try to convince the international antitrust bodies of its good intentions with the Call of Duty series, Microsoft has begun to show itself as a kind of unfortunate relative of the video game industry, the one that everyone mistreated at Christmas dinners, leaving vast room for maneuver to PlayStation, which already seems to enjoy an incredible image immunity for every choice of management, which fails to dent the success of PS5 by an ounce. So no exclusive weight since the launch of Halo Infinite, a very low profile on further acquisitions to not upset the regulatory bodies of the market, no announcements related to the hardware ... Flat calm.

Paradoxically, it was the minor exclusives, such as Grounded, As Dusk Falls, Immortality, Scorn and the imminent Pentiment, who suffered this state of calm, unable to move the waters anymore. from time to time. Not that they are bad games: despite limitations and flaws, they are all worthy of being played in their own way (for Pentiment we will see as soon as it becomes available), only that they have struggled to galvanize the environment and create the right noise for the Xbox Series X and Yes, they have remained on the sidelines of the videogame chatter.

The games

Grounded is beautiful, but little has been said about it Here, if we want the main problem of making a report on the first two years of the Xbox Series X | S is that since the end of 2021 little or nothing has happened, videogame speaking. The new generation struggles to show itself, giving more account of the moment of crisis of the triple A model, which cannot afford to abandon installed bases such as those of PS4 and Xbox One so lightly, given the sales necessary to return investments, than its own actual potential. If in the second year of a console's life there is not a single first party game able to show its potential, there is inevitably a problem. From our point of view, postponements are always welcome, if they are aimed at improving the quality of the games, but nevertheless lose in one fell swoop the two most important releases of the year (Starfield and Redfall, let's remember), without having anything to stop injury, commercially, is a problem.Let's try to clarify the matter: we are not saying that a Grounded is worth nothing, or that a Pentiment cannot be more important than any open world action movie with a lot of money and few ideas. This is not the point. The market is not only made up of good games, but above all of chatter, intended as social identification and purchase instincts. The masses inevitably go where communication flows, be it that of the press (a little), of influencers (much more) or communities (a lot), for the simple fact that the objects that are bought often do not only satisfy a need. playful, but above all an identity one. It has happened where positive attention is lodged that creates a compulsive desire to be part of something, not necessarily where there is quality (which is welcome, but in some cases it is not essential).

Immortality is an Xbox exclusive console, did you know? Forza Horizon 5 is the perfect example of what we mean: technically splendid, positively received from the announcement and capable of maintaining positive expectations until its release, it has achieved a success that has not been recorded on Xbox for years, inevitably being connected to Xbox Series X in the collective imagination. Here, in 2022 Microsoft's playful ecosystem was lacking something like this, that is, some game around which general attention would settle. There have been good games, even excellent ones, but nothing really driving, where the competition has presented itself with at least three important exclusives, although all cross-gen: Horizon Forbidden West, God of War Ragnarok and Gran Turismo 7, succeeding moreover. to make noise even with minor titles like Stray or with games produced by Xbox Game Studios like Ghostwire Tokyo.

Pentiment's marketing is really shy Microsoft's marketing, from this point of view, has not worked. Paradoxically, something has been seen with Scorn, but launches of titles such as Grounded, highly appreciated by the public, and now Pentiment have been passed almost on the sly, so much so that many also struggle to define what kind of game it is. The most sensational example of this shyness in communication, however, was Immortality, which many do not even know is an exclusive Xbox console. So you've got a critically acclaimed (have you read our review?) And audiences masterpiece coming out exclusively on your console, one of the highest rated average games of the year, from a well-known and beloved author, with content that can to discuss and do little or nothing to sell it? Not that Immortality can lift you up, but at least it can help you get active and connect your console with a desirable experience, not usable on other competing platforms.

Year of change

The The release of Starfield could have made the 2022 of Xbox Series X and S very different The 2022 of the Xbox Series was therefore a year of transition, in which the Xbox Game Pass, including the cloud appendix, and the attempt dominated the scene. acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which is also encountering many difficulties. A service and an economic maneuver, therefore, with the latter that will hold the bench for a good part of 2023. If we want, this is an indicative figure of Microsoft's philosophy of putting its ecosystem at the center of the scene, rather than the hardware , but if we add it all to the already discussed lack of games in the foreground, we inevitably end up dealing with an incurable contradiction: the most powerful console on the market has been marginalized, failing to express itself as it should and could have done, because he was not allowed to do it. So the second year of Xbox Series X and S was paradoxically worse than the first, strange for what is still a successful product, and it has also renewed that atmosphere of perennial expectation around the Xbox that we hoped to have definitively left behind. after 2021. So, to conclude the article by stating that we hope 2023 is the year that Series X and S can blossom puts a certain melancholy, because it is a hope that we were hoping not to have to cherish anymore.

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