PS4 Pro: 10 Ongoing Mistakes That Just Cost Sony This Generation

5. Lack Of Consistent Console Exclusives

There was a particular feeling of "WTF?!" at E3 2015 when Sony's big takeaways were a far-away upcoming remake of Final Fantasy VII (which when they announced, had barely been talked about), The Last Guardian looking about a decade out of place, and a Kickstarter for Shenmue 3. This extended to 2016, where once again, the resounding sentiment was "Exclusives are coming... at some point in the future... probably."

Let's size these two sides up and look to the next year from right now:

Horizon: Zero Dawn, God Of War, Spider-Man and Nioh prop up Sony's calendar, all being very spaced out, and that's without mentioning The Last Guardian, which will almost certainly buckle under the pressure.

On the other hand, Microsoft have Gears of War 4, Crackdown 3, State of Decay 2, Scalebound and Dead Rising 4 - three of which are continuations of legacy franchises, with State of Decay and Scalebound iterating on either a proven formula or a time-tested developer respectively.

Even if ReCore completely fails in the coming weeks, at least Microsoft are giving you specific reasons to invest in the machine itself, instead of falling back on third-party titles and the occasional 'exclusive DLC pack' to pick up the slack.