The Most Launch Titles Ever? That Depends (Premium)

Microsoft marketing found itself in hot water this month it repeatedly claimed that the Xbox One X would launch with the most launch titles ever for a console.

Video game fanatics—and, to be clear, this is a group of pedants with no equal among technology fans—immediately jumped all over this claim, noting that the Xbox One X shipped with no console-exclusive titles at all. That is, all of the games that Microsoft is counting as “launch titles” are simply existing Xbox One games that have been enhanced for the new console.

I assume most readers are familiar with the Star Wars movies and some of the most disappointing wordplay in the history of cinema. Apprised that Darth Vader is his father, Luke Skywalker returns to Dagobah and confronts the ghost of Obi-wan Kenobi, who had previously informed him that Darth Vader had killed his father. (Even if you’re familiar with the movies, that sentence reads like nonsense words, doesn’t it?)

“You’re going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view,” he tells Luke calmly.

It took everything I had not to throw my soda at the screen when I first viewed that scene. But Obi-wan was right, from a certain point of view. (See what I did there?) And Microsoft is right, too. Though I personally find their position more believable.

What’s really happening here is that the video game pedants are just raising the same tired argument about Microsoft’s Xbox strategy. They’re living in the past and refusing to believe that the Xbox One X should be taken seriously because it has no literal console exclusives. Instead, what it has are games that can be played on other Xbox One console versions. And a handful of (Xbox Play Anywhere) games that can be played on Windows PCs too.

Those games are what we might call “Microsoft exclusive” or “Xbox platform exclusive,” phrases we need to invent because Microsoft, like Sony, is changing the console life cycle dramatically now. And some video game fanatics don’t like it. They want things to stay the same, where a single console floats along for 8 or 10 years and is then replaced by something better but incompatible.

We can argue the relative merits of Microsoft’s strategy. But we’d be wrong to do so, because Microsoft is right. As I’ve pointed out in the past, the software giant is providing what I feel is the most gamer-friendly strategy in the market. There are other debates worth having. The relative strengths of each platform’s game lineups. Which 4K console is more powerful. Whether a mobile strategy is important. And so on. But this? Come on.

I am somewhat bothered that Microsoft chose to defend itself in a video game forum: This is identical to a single Microsoft executive using his personal Twitter account to explain Windows strategy, a huge pet peeve of mine. But the software giant is right to defend itself, for sure. And I agree with them on this one.

“Serious question,” Microsoft marketing senior director Albert Penello starts off in a post on Resetera. “Most modern consoles launched with [about] 20 titles on day one. I’m not talking [backward compatible games,] I’m talking new titles that take advantage of the new platform. This can be remasters, games that ship on [previous generation] consoles and [new generation consoles], or new-gen exclusives.”

Doing a quick search and using the same rationale, Penello notes that the Xbox One shipped with 22 launch titles, the PlayStation 4 had 23, and the PlayStation 4 Pro had 30. Going back further, the Xbox 360 had 18 and the PlayStation 3 had 14.

“We had over 50 Xbox One X Enhanced titles on launch day,” he added. “67 as of today.” Today being this past Friday. More are added basically every day. “When I check this list – I see nothing all the way back in the neighborhood of 50. What am I missing?”

What Penello is missing is that the people he’s arguing are never going to see eye-to-eye with him on what constitutes a “launch title.” And his post, well-intentioned or not, of course, piled on by the haters. The nicest summary is that they accuse him of “spin.”

Marketing is, by definition, “spin,” but then this entire thing is semantics, so let’s not get bogged down in that. One needs to accept the reality of Microsoft’s current Xbox strategy before one can understand that the Xbox One X did, in fact, ship with 50 launch titles, meaning it shipped with 50 games that offer unique features and functionality on that specific hardware. This is just a fact.

It is also a fact that none of those games are “exclusive” in the traditional sense to the Xbox One X. But they also offer exclusive benefits that gamers only get on the Xbox One X. And that isn’t just important, it’s the freaking point: Microsoft is offering a continuum of consoles that each provide unique benefits, and those that do upgrade to Xbox One X will see many of their existing games as being new again. I noted this with Halo 3 in particular: It really is like a brand new game again.

Microsoft is correct to stick with its marketing message here. My only issue is that it should do so more publicly and more forcefully. These online bullies and video game pedants need to wake up and join the future. As Microsoft and its Xbox fans have already done.