1. First Party Titles
There's an old saying; "Its not the hardware that makes the tech. Its the software". This saying pretty much spells out the fate of a console. Besides having popular third-party franchises, what really makes a console stand out in the competition is its unique first-party franchises. Nintendo's consoles has
Mario,
Zelda,
Star Fox,
Pikmin and
Metroid. Sony has
inFamous,
Killzone,
God of War,
Uncharted, Sly Cooper,
Jak & Daxter and many more. That leaves Microsoft's consoles which don't have as many quality first-party franchises to support it. Or do they. Throughout its existence, the Xbox brand has relied mostly on
Halo,
Forza Motorsport and the occasional timed exclusives to stand out from the competition. That does sound grim for a console brand when read out loud. However, a closer analysis reveals that Microsoft has enough quality first-party franchises to carry its Xbox One in the coming console race. Last generation, Microsoft relinquished Rare from Nintendo and has tasked the studio with bring its popular IPs -- such as
Banjo-Kazooie,
Conker,
Perfect Dark and
Killer Instinct -- to the Xbox 360. Recently, it was confirmed that the Xbox One will receive two of theses IPs; a new
Banjo Kazooie and
Killer Instinct. So far so good. But there's more. The more popular first-party franchise like
Halo and
Forza already have a large following in the Xbox community. In fact, those games were the real reason why many decided to purchase ans Xbox console. Besides these popular franchises, new IPs like
Quantum Break,
Ryse: Son of Rome, Sunset Overdrive, Project Spark and many more look just as enticing. Whether these will become new franchises or the occasional one-shot IPs doesn't matter. Its still too soon to tell, but the Xbox One software looks impressive enough to buy. Never mind the price or the restrictions the hardware may have. What really counts is the software.