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 senio...