The Xbox One got off to an unpopular start. Mixed messaging and blatant back-pedaling didnt make a great first impression, and with consistently underwhelming technical performances when put side-by-side with the PS4, Microsoft has been earning our respect back from square one. Fortunately, despite the PS4's apparent two-fold lead on the Xbox One's sales, loyal Microsofties don't really have too much to worry about. When you compare the Xbox One's sales figures with those of last-gen, it's still a very healthy, faster-selling console than the PS3 or 360. They've got to be doing something right right? Dead Rising 3 and Ryse: Son of Rome were solid, but expected launch-quality fare. Titanfall has certainly influenced the online shooter landscape, while it may not have been the system seller Microsoft was hoping for. Its hard to know what to make of all this when you throw Call of Duty into the mix. Call of Duty: Ghost didn't fair so well as a new-gen console launcher, but Advanced Warfare has a palpably larger wave of hype behind it, looking poised to pounce straight for Titanfall's jugular with boosty jumps and.... Kevin Spacey, no less. Advanced Warfare is a multi-platform joint, but the Xbox has always been the unofficial home of the Call of Duty series. Will Advanced Warfighter and Titanfall go head-to-head more directly in future sequels? What will November mean for the original Titanfalls player-base and the recently released Destiny? The Xbox One certainly wears Microsoft's "cool dad" vibes on its sleeve, with its Windows 8-esque, quasi-intuitive interface and a brand-feel that is highly-polished, yet still trying a little too hard. Still, all that DRM-related, no-used-games nonsense was repealed almost immediately. The obligatory Kinect 2.0 - initially pitched as an absolutely essential piece of Xbox One kit - has now been casually cast aside, a slimmer price-point taking its place. Microsoft has genuinely rolled back on just about every single thing the public hated, so much so that the Xbox One has almost lost the brand identity it initially pitched. It has stripped itself down to what is essentially a slightly less-powerful PS4, so the only thing setting either new-gen system apart is a stellar line-up of console exclusives. If the following 9 upcoming games are any indication, we're in safe hands. Believe it or not, the Xbox legacy is about to be more relevant than ever before thanks to some returning icons and newer virtual stars alike