We're deep in the digital trenches now, can you feel it? The taste of platform-exclusivity, titles being snatched away from their former homes for the sake of making an appearance on the 'rival' system, Season Pass DLC only being available for people with a certain console... the list goes on. For a while the whole 'console war' thing had died down a bit, so close are the PS4 and Xbox One under the hood that even after dissecting some hardware specs there wasn't anything to get too riled up about. Things were calm, barren even, as nay a title in sight really made anyone plump for one or the other, but what that reignited behind the scenes is a series of business deals; the first major blow coming as Microsoft purchased both Minecraft and Tomb Raider. Sony are yet to really nail anything substantial down as an exclusive, but back in 2013 they did deliver this fantastic putdown to Microsoft during E3. All you need to know going in was Microsoft had said borrowing games could lead to fees for people trading in to retailers, as well as not being clear on if lending a friend's game would even work - something everyone was expecting Sony to also back, as it forces the consumer to purchase new copies of a game. Instead, this happened: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ-To7WJyWs Right there Microsoft had been dealt a hull-rupturing blow they'd stagger and eventually recover from, ditching the poisonous Kinect in the process. The fact is, many gamers flocked from the dilapidated, broken Camp PS3 and into the warm, feather-pillowed hotels of Xbox 360 last generation, building up quite the amount of fan-alignment that's not so easily tossed aside. People actively want to like the Xbox One because of how many fond memories they have for previous hardware, and as much as they're starting to mount a comeback offensive, they need a bulletproof catalogue of exclusives to make sure everyone sticks around going forward.
