And yet only 2 - 3 million people bought Knack.

And yet only 3 - 4 million people bought Killzone: Shadow Fall

And yet only 2 - 3 million people bought DriveClub.

And yet only 3 - 4 million people bought inFamous: Second Son

The rest played cross-gen games, multiplatform games and PS3-ports (f.e. The Last of Us Remastered) on their PS4s in 2013 + 2014.

We will see soon enough. People are excited about the 23rd because they're expecting to see Halo show up as some next gen spectacle. I'm only listening to Phil here and I just don't see it happening. It will be a great game and it will be 4k, 120fps and/or have Ray Tracing. So there's that, but imo that doesn't make it a next gen game at all.

Of course developers are free to choose but in the end it's a business decision. There's a reason why nobody ever made an exclusive game for the RTX gpu's or for the mid-gen consoles. Financially it just doesn't make sense. I bet all the developers who are currently working on Series X games are making sure it runs on Xbox One and/or low-end pc specs first. Scorn is a next gen console exclusive but it will run fine on a 6-year-old GTX970 and even a GTX750 will be enough to run it, which is practically the same gpu that's in the ps4. Same thing with God Fall by the way. Not sure about the exact specs but it sure as hell doesn't look like a game that'll push the ps5 to its limits.

I know but its not just about the launch games. People tend to buy a new console based on the promise of what's to come. MS is promising no next gen exclusives for the coming 2 years...

So the exclusive games of the second PS4 year (plus 2 months launch window) sold much better?

Only 1 - 2 million people bought The Order: 1886.

Only 3 - 4 million people bought Bloodborne.

Only 2 - 3 million people bought Until Dawn.

The rest played cross-gen games, multiplatform games (GTA V, CoD, FIFA...) and PS3-ports (f.e. the Nathan Drake Trilogy) on their PS4s in 2013 + 2014 + 2015... over 200 million retail versions of these games not pushing the envelope were sold until 2015... plus a lot of digital games of course.

Perhaps playing exclusive games "not possible on the older console" within the first two years ain't the main reason for most buyers of the new console.

This all rings hollow when you’re also passing off cinematic footage of HFW as a true next gen leap because the underwater detail is like totally awesome. Basically ever since you started this crusade to constantly poop on next gen Xbox, whatever Sony does is right and great, whatever MS does is wrong and makes you mad. And if Sony does one of those wrong things then that’s ok, you’ll just flip flop.

We already saw it with what you qualify as a “true next gen” game. It was only a few months ago that you were trying to tell us that next gen games should be games designed to do things not possible on current gen. It wasn’t until people reminded you that PS4 had none of that for years and was chock full of cross gen games that you flip flopped to where “true next gen” just means better graphics we haven’t seen before. Cue your Horizon cinematic praise. Woah you can swim in the water. But it looks so good. 

By your own flip flopped definition, XSX should be fine. Who cares if the Xbone and XSX versions of Halo are designed the same, does the XSX version look way better? Well if HFW or Ratchet or GT7 are anything to go by, that qualifies as “true next gen” to you. But somehow for some reason you’re expecting more from MS. They’ve supposedly been poorly marketing next gen and lowering the bar and yet you somehow still expect them to blow you away on levels even Sony did not need to. Strange.

Basically one company showed a bunch of stuff that fundamentally looked like games we already play, but just look way better. But if another company does the same, it’s bad, because those games can also be played current gen. It’s fine logic I guess.

IIRC Conina is also the person who listed the metric shit ton of PS4 games that were cross gen in goopzilla’s very first “what counts as next gen” episode. He or she is basically goopy kryptonite.

Well for starters no one has said MS isn’t focused on selling XSX hardware, but the simple and obvious answer to your query is that cross gen support during year one of XSX and cross gen support the entire gen are not the same thing. 

Phil Spencer said more than once that they don't care you buy XSX, they care about providing the service.

And again if older hardware doesn't hold back at all so why drop support for X1 at all?

Nah, saying he doesn’t care if someone doesn’t have the money to upgrade consoles this year because of COVID doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about XSX sales. They have goals they want to meet. Surely you believe this.

And again, supporting older hardware during year one when the games are basically all cross gen or not utilizing the new hardware fully is not the same thing as supporting it in year five when everyone is pumping out amazing looking stuff.

Logic is so simple.

I dont like phil spencer. He talks too much. It is about time you let the games do the talking for once.