Xbox has quietly spent an amazing summer, here's why

With E3, Gamescom and other game shops in the middle of the exercise, the summer is a period charged for many game publishers and console manufacturers despite the occasional lack of major versions. In recent months, Microsoft and Xbox Game Studios have kept the foot on the pedal and have delivered a lot of games, updates and advertisements widely successful and well received.

In what many consider as one of Xbox's best E3 showcases for over a decade, their first joint presentation with Bethesda Game Studios revealed very expected titles that are, of course, directed the first day to Xbox Game Pass . The great opening punch was launched by Todd Howard, one of the main producers of Bethesda whose presence itself was a showcase of the power of Xbox. After a brief introduction, Howard presented our first ofacie Overview of the first new intellectual property of Bethesda for over 15 years, Starfield. Although there is not much other than an integrated engine, it has been confirmed later that the new game would be an exclusivity of the Xbox console, which partly answered an imminent question about The exclusivity of the Bethesda games following their acquisition by Microsoft.

Starfield was not the only title that attracted attention during the show, Stalker 2, Halo Infinite's Multiplayer, Forza Horizon 5 and Outer Worlds 2 have all made waves with respective revelations. Many other games have proved to be headed for Game Pass, such as Yakuza 7 and Back for Blood, reinforcing Microsoft's already impressive portfolio for service.

This summer was not just about Future ads for Xbox, they also had their fair share of published titles and exclusive outflows. In July, Microsoft got two exclusivities of different third-party consoles that were hailed by criticism. Death's Door, the Zelda and Soul Hybrid version, and The Ascent, a descending ARPG that merges the mechanisms of Diablo with a CyberPunk frame, both display a metacritic score of 85 and 70 respectively, although the score of the user. For The Ascent remains a comfortable 85.

In August, Annapurna Interactive released the thriller point-click 12 minutes exclusively on Xbox and PC. Just at the dawn of an 80 on Metacritic, 12 minutes was a unique edition with Xbox exclusives that highlights Phil Spencer's plan to diversify the types of games that we traditionally see supported by XBOX.

On the side published by the first part of things, Xbox Game Studios has released two major successes, one aroused discussions about being a competitor of the game of the year. Microsoft Flight Simulator was launched on PC a little over a year ago, but July saw its debut on Xbox. Simulation or hate simulation games, the world of satellite images of Flight Simulator is nothing if not a chance for the X series to evolve its technically impressive specifications. With various control schemes to make it accessible to game controllers, Flight SIM offers a magnificent visit of the most attractive places of the Earth.

Although they are not exclusive, Xbox Game Studio and DoubleFine's Psychonauts 2 have brought the revitalization of a beloved franchise and a genre to the hungry players of engaging and warm 3D platform games. This title is one of the best rated games for Xbox studios for some time, with a score of 87 on Metacritic, as well as discussions on social networks on the pretension of the game for a number of prizes of the game. The year.

Although Xbox has indeed impressed, there has certainly been some stumbling in heat. A few days before the Gamescom, 343i announced that Halo Infinite would not be delivered with the cooperative campaign game, nor the Forge card creation mode, and repel their exit to 2022. The first of the features was felt by many like The most severe shot, because cooperative campaign experiences were a basic food for the franchise to Halo 5, which has also been criticized for the exclusion of cooperation.

In addition, the showcase of the Xbox Gamescom seemed dull for many, even if the fans were invited to temper the expectations and only the previously announced games would be broadcast, the showcase left the fans disappointed by very little new land traveled and a Criticism of nearly 5 minutes on a historic chain. (which seemed much longer than 5 minutes) on the function of the trebulets. Even with Microsoft declaring that there would be no new game announcements, the reaction would surely have been more positive if they had provided if only a small part of the news regarding upcoming securities like Starfield, confessed , Fable or Perfect Dark, no matter how far these games can be. Microsoft has proceeded to reveal the launch date of Halo Infinite, however, it was during the show Opening Night Live from Geoff Keightly, instead of their own showcase, which was at best a questionable decision.

Despite the shortages of consoles that hit all manufacturers, Xbox reported in July that the Xbox Series X | S is the best-selling Xbox console to date, exceeding the progress of the Xbox 360 of 1.5 million units. . Although it is still difficult to hang a series X, the series S is much more available for consumers and is considered by many as an additional machine to an existing system. Although the current sales rate is promising for Microsoft, it is also important to note that the Xbox One has exceeded the Xbox 360 of 0.7 million in the same time and is still more than 30 million units less than the 360 ​​in life sales.

Throughout the summer, Microsoft continued to deploy optimization patches for games and the user interface itself, as well as to expand the games that use the exceptional functionality of the system, Quick Resume. Other small updates include the output of the new Xbox controller catchy with a new color scheme named Aqua Shift , as well as the announcement of a future X series and a controller on the theme of Halo Infinite.

While Microsoft has had many successes with its material, the elephant in the room is simply the lack of units on the shelves. Yet, according to the shortages of semiconductors and other problems related to the pandemic, Xbox leads a difficult battle to put its consoles in the hands of the players, rather than scalpers.

With their more successes than their missteps, Microsoft and Xbox just seem to reach their pace. Phil Spencer's firm hand brought the Xbox back on the ring, and with Game Pass like reliable Jab, their exclusives on console look like a sacred hook on the left. While the prices of scalped consoles fall slowly but surely, we hope that many other players will handle a X-series, but for now they can continue to crush the buttons on their x or series S, and let Xbox's intelligent delivery follow their progress. later. While the holiday launch window and Game Awards are getting closer, Microsoft's surprise ads reserves to keep us warm for the winter remain unknown.

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