NPD: Xbox One physical copies of Destiny outsold PS4. (Not bundled or digital)

[Zanten]

NightDragon83 said:

Wow,I honestly can't believe what I just read.  Really, the 360/X1 userbase isn't big on platformers, WRPGs, fighters, racing, open world, and sandbox games?  You're joking, right?  The dozens of LEGO games, Oblivion/Skyrim/Fallout, Street Fighter / Mortal Kombat, Forza series / Burnout / NFS etc, GTA / RDR / Crackdown / Saints Row, games that have all solds millions of copies on the 360, in many cases more so than the PS3 versions, all say hi.  You don't see as much diversity on Xbox consoles because you CHOOSE not to see it. 

JRPGs are the ONLY genre that 360 users don't care about, and that's because, quite frankly, the selection of JRPGs completely blew this past gen.  Why should 360 gamers run out and buy the latest FF with a roman numeral slapped onto it when the selection of AAA WRPGs by comparison is top notch?  You've got Little Big Planet?  That's nice... the 360 had a little game called Minecraft, only the best selling indie game of all time so you may have heard of it.  How many copies did LBP sell again?  And X1 has Little Big Plan-It, aka Project Spark.  I'm sure it'll be a bomb and no one will buy it tho, seeing as how Xbox gamers only buy shooters / dude bro games

Action and sports games are also "dude-bro" games too?   I guess Madden, FIFA, NBA2K, UFC ect don't sell on Sony consoles, and Uncharted / The Last Of Us / God of War etc are totally not "dude-bro" action games.  Funny thing is you call out Sunset Overdrive on X1... ummm who makes that game again?  Oh right, Insomniac... who also make Ratchet & Clank, a hybrid platform / action game known for its over the top weapons and 'splosions gameplay and off color humor, and Resistance, which is, surprise surprise, yet another dude-bro FPS title.

But you're right about one thing, only the 360 / X1 has dude-bro bundles like Titanfall / COD / Madden / Sunset Overdrive.  I mean you don't see the PS3 / PS4 being packaged with exclusive bundles for mega dude-bro games and marketed as the lead platform for said games...

Wait, what's this...

Ohhhhhh...

Ohhh noooooo......

What, AGAIN?!?

And this is all just over the past generation... go back to the PS1 and PS2 days.  No "dude-bro" games there I'm sure... well, as long as you don't count all the Tony Hawk / Xtreme sports games, Twisted Metal series, NFL Blitz, WWF/WCW wrestling games, the Medal of Honor series (or as I call it, the o.g. COD), and Tomb Raider (really, how much more "dude-bro" does a game get than one that stars a chick with big guns and even bigger tits???)  And we didn't even mention a little game called Grand Theft Auto III, another penultimate dude-bro game that single-handedly won the generation for Sony.

And with tons more FPS / action / sports games on the way, seems to me like PlayStation will once again be the lead platform for dude-bro games this gen, and 3/4 generatons overall.  Have fun with that.

First, for the record, I do have to mention that my opinion does differ a little from Aura's on "What Makes Dudebro,' as I don't really associate Sunset Overdrive with that title. For me, I feel that Sunset Overdrive has enough color and irreverence to also set it apart from just being a 'Dudebro shooter,' as it seems to poke fun at those conventions and I'm actually looking forward to seeing more of it. My definition for dudebro shooters is usually the sort of hat-on-heart, overly serious, not-remotely-self-aware shooting fests typified by Call of Duty and Battlefield, so, from both consoles, I would include Resitance, Killzone, Halo, Gears, etc. Stuff that has mechanics that set it apart- like Fallout 3's fairly extensive RPG elements- or a tone contrary to the normal Military Dick Waving- such as Sunset Overdrive or the super-powered slug-fests of Saints Row 4 and Infamous- are actually precisely my cup of tea.

But yeah, games like Sunset Overdrive are A-Okay in my book, and I actually really hope it does well, because I'd like Microsoft to stretch itself a little in terms of exclusive content; last thing I want is the game doing poorly, leading to 'BACK TO THE SPACE MARINES EVERYONE!'

But now! Allow me to explain the reasoning for the whole dudebro console thing.

***

First! My methodology! Feel free to skip to the next section for the conclusions (and point) this section is just to take you step-by-step through the process by which I reached these conclusions. Obviously, if you have a problem with my conclusions, you should double-check this section to make sure the answer to any questions aren't already covered.

*clears throat*

Not even going to spend much time on Japanese games because, well, pretty much a solid conclusion that the PS3 was far better supported in terms of JRPGs than the Xbox 360, a factor that contributed to it having significantly more exclusives released in later years. Don't think we disagree there, and honestly, bringing in Japanese exclusives just makes it unfair for the Xbox. o.o If you do think the Xbox was equally supported in Japanese content, well, you're hilariously wrong, so either way, we can move on.

Let us look instead at the turn the Xbox 360's first party development focus took during the last third or so of its lifespan, to measure why one may look on the console as a 'dudebro' unit. Now, I generally don't count Kinect games for the pretty simple reason that, as someone deciding if a console's lineup is 'right for you,' you'd only count Kinect games if you both had a Kinect, and actually LIKED the games; simply buying or owning a 360 wasn't enough, you needed to also buy the peripheral, which does inevitably create a 'divide' in the mind of consumers between Kinect games, and non-Kinect games. To anyone who didn't own a Kinect, bringing up Kinect games to defend the system would have been like bringing up 3DS games to defend the Wii U. Sure, the games are THERE, but you can't play it with the set-up you currently have. Besides, I'm being all nice and not bringing in Japanese content, or PS Move content, so consider this a trade-off.

So, between the launch of the Kinect and the launch of the Xbox One, what did Microsoft's studios, the ones not working to try and make Kinect relevent, bring the non-Kinect owning fanbase in terms of new content?

Two Halo games! Two Gears games! Two Forza games!!

...end of list! (Unless you want to count a Fable remake, but for the record, if we're counting that as a new game, we also get to count TLOU:R as a new game! =D )

But wait! That's not the entire story, let us delve deeper, into the third-party stuff. So, the list of third-party content, either funded by Microsoft or simply signed on in exclusivity, is...

-State of Decay, released in 2013. Solid game, from what I've heard, so kudos! =D
-Minecraft (Since it was exclusive until only recently.)
-The Witcher 2
-Toy Soldier: Cold War, a game about military toys engaged in feverent battle.
-Blackwatch, a pretty badly reviewed Kinect shooter I am only including cause it was technically possible to use a controller instead.
-Sesame Street! I am super cereal.

So! Six games in about three years, two a year on average. Of those six titles, Blackwatch is pretty much dudebro all the way, Sesame Street, Minecraft, and the Witcher 2 aren't, while State of Decay and Toy Soliders are kinda grey area, in the way one asks if God of War or TLOU is dudebro, because there are some elements that say yes, (Military, lots of violence,) and others that say no. (Toys, swinging chain blades and Greek mythology.) But hey, I'll count them as 'not dudebro,' as they do have elements that set them apart from twitch shooters, such as survival features and the fact that you're a little plastic figurine, and also cause I'm awesome like that. =D

Two Halo Games, Two Gears Games, Two Forza Games, and Blackwatch give us a total of 7 Dudebro games. The Fable remake, plus Sesame Street, Minecraft, the Witcher 2, State of Decay, and Toy Soldiers give us 6 non-Dudebro games, bringing the total up to 13 non-Kinect Xbox 360 exclusives between the release of the Kinect, and the release of the Xbox One.

****

Now, my conclusions, including a brief summary of my findings! In case you skipped the above section, the total number of non-Kinect exclusives over three years was 13, of which 6 weren't dudebro shooters or racers.

You ridicule the idea that the Xbox 360 is a dudebro console and the PS3 wasn't, because Playstation has dudebro stuff, and dudebro bundles, and the funny thing is, in a way you are correct. Playstation has shooter franchises, racing franchises, it even has an exclusive sports franchise (baseball.) It also had some of the goriest and most violent exclusive stuff on all the platforms, i.e. God of War and his slow-motion-head-ripping-offs. And yet it's the Xbox 360 that gets called the dudebro console, even by its own fans some of the time. Dem lies! Dem Sony Fanboy LIES! All misinformation, correct?!

Not quite. Because what you're neglecting is the fact that the PS3 also had things to call its very own- things that weren't on the Xbox- that broke the dudebro mold, and what's more, it had MORE of that variety than the Xbox 360 did, even if we don't count the Japanese exclusives that were exclusive largely because the Xbox's market position in Japan is 'Lawl.' The fact that it had all those exclusive shooters, car games and sports games was muffled because it also had other properties, be they different in terms of mechanics or in appearance to a military or space marines shooter/conventional racer, that fleshed out its 'identity,' while the Xbox 360, surprisingly, steadily jettisoned the elements that fleshed out its own identity over its lifespan, ignoring the bulk of the IPs that COULD have made it a balanced console in the eyes of the wider consumer base, in favor of the sure-selling shooters and racing titles, until it ended the generation as 'The Console With Shooters And Racers.'

The irony is, I honestly don't think that the Xbox 360 fanbase were mostly dudebros, and that nobody there liked platformers or RPGs. I truly don't. Heck, I was a fairly early 360 adopter (back before the first Bioshock released) and I'm about as varied as they come.

But judging by the focus of their development in the later years of the 360, (and if you skipped all that stuff up there, don't you dare say 'what do you mean by that?' =P ) it really seems Microsoft thought the fanbase was mostly dudebros. o_o Or at the very least, that they decided the non-dudebros weren't numerous enough to bother catering to. Bright side is, they are- slowly- starting to show a shift in momentum, one that will hopefully make the Xbox One a lot more varied throughout its lifespan than the Xbox 360 ended its run. And honestly, continuing to be outsold by the PS4 will likely help with that, as Microsoft will work harder to bring more content, and reach a broader audience, if only to try and recapture the U.S. market.

But regardless on whether they succeed in changing that perception, and that reputation, it IS a reputation they brought on themselves.