TBF there's a lot of "games are games, IDC who they are made from". Which is fine and all but there's nothing wrong with discussing the state of the first party studios.

But yeah, some people think published = 1st party, it can be kind of confusing for some people. Forget talking about this with casuals IRL.

Well its super easy to spend 37 hours on any game that has a online mode even if that online mode is just mediocre.

i love it when someone thought that the holiday season will determine whose lineup is better instead of the whole year

Even timed exclusive also counts as first party games  

1st party is pretty bad for all 3. When compared to 2 years 360 though XB1 is much worse. PS4 is kinda similar to PS3 so it isn't that bad. PS3 also had solid 2012 and 2013 in 1st party, not much from 360.

The interesting part is about first party studios, not even games (the games talk is deceiving IMO). 

When 343, The Coalition and Turn 10 are done with their games, what will be the next One first party studio releasing their game? Rare? Lionhead ? They're both mere shadows of what they were years ago.

So, after Halo 5 and Gears 4, we will wait years for Halo 6 and Gears 5 to release for a new "best line up ever", and the waiting time will be full with third and second party games only (and maybe a few smaller first party). That's the real issue with the Xbox IMO (and that's why I can consider buying a Wii U or NX, but not an Xbox, I don't like Halo and Gears enough for that).

They just don't have enough first party studios compared to the other 2. And when the Japanese developers already go for the NX over the Xbox One, and when you don't have enough marketshares to secure exclusives easily, it becomes difficult not to fall behind in term of games released if you can't compensate with your first party devs. That's only logical. 

Fast forward to 2018...

And things are looking up, specially if even 50% of the rumours are true.

Fast Forward to 2021....

Seriously, I never thought MS would turn it around, I remember making this thread knowing I would probably get hate from xbox fans. And the 1st party actually got worse than this for a while, crazy how things have changed.

EDIT: also "SoT is not what I wanted" *now has 1,500 hours invested in it*

Well, it's a little better, now. However, that improvement comes from people expecting better things from their recent acquisitions, not any actual games delivered. And those games are likely not to hit til 2022 or 2023. There is 100% still mismanagement going on at Xbox. The state that they were going to release Halo Infinite, their #1 flagship title, in is proof enough.

While I agree that most of the excitement is about what is coming rather than what has come, there have been some significantly awesome moments so far:

Flight Simulator was huge.

Grounded is/will be big when I guess it fully launches.

Gamepass is becoming more and more epic, which makes playing on PC/Xbox all the more appealing (the EA deal, the rumored Ubisoft deal, other 3rd party deals, etc.). While many of these games aren't first party games, they are freely accessible (as a bonus) to anyone already paying for Gamepass in replacement of getting first party games, which makes this whole situation amazing. I subscribed to Gamepass for $10 a month when it launched (for PC). WELL before many of the acquisitions they have made and before many of the third party deals were made and it still costs the same per month. I'm at the point where I'm overwhelmed by which games to play on Gamepass because there are so many lol.