There is so much denial in this thread, somebody call a 12 step scam company so people can "get better!"

Denial about what? The numbers are still in Sony's favor. Any post from you, me, or someone else about the future of each platform is all conjecture. 

Aside from Call of Duty, which is going to remain multiplatform for this generation at least, and Starfield, very few of Microsoft's first party games in the next couple of years are high profile, tentpole IP's that can match the mindshare of something like GOW or GT7, yet alone massive Marvel IP's like SpiderMan 2 or Wolverine. Games like Fable, TOW2, Hellblade 2, Everwild, Avowed, Gears 6, won't generate as much excitement as FF16, yet alone something like GOT2. They may have a slight lead in quantity, but with the amount of partnerships Sony has with independent studios, which includes developers from regions where the Xbox is non existent, as well as third party deals, I don't particularly see Microsoft drowning out Sony in releases.

Forza is probably more popular than Gran Turismo at this point, games like Halo Elder Scrolls, Fallout can stand their own when compared to Marvel IPs and Final Fantasy.

The God of War series has sold over 32m and the Gears of War has sold 27m and that doesn't include Gears Judgement, Gears Collection, and Gears 4/5 sales so suggesting that these games don't generate the same amount of hype is wrong.

I do agree that MS wont drown out Sony in releases, they both have a lot of great games coming up.

I doubt Forza has surpassed Gran Turismo in popularity. Number of players are not the same as actual sales. Otherwise, I could conflate the popularity of Uncharted 4 (37M players) and the Destiny franchise (187M total players) beyond their actual pull. Also, the God of War franchise has sold over 50M units not 32M units, but more importantly the IP is a lot more popular today then it was during the PS2/PS3 era. 

I doubt Forza has surpassed Gran Turismo in popularity. Number of players are not the same as actual sales. Otherwise, I could conflate the popularity of Uncharted 4 (37M players) and the Destiny franchise (187M total players) beyond their actual pull. Also, the God of War franchise has sold over 50M units not 32M units, but more importantly the IP is a lot more popular today then it was during the PS2/PS3 era. 

The thing with Forza Horizon 5 is that it wasn’t bundled so all the players and sales were people who actually purchased the game or purchased a subscription to play the game so it’s not the same like Uncharted 4 which was bundled with the PS4 for years. Popularity does I need to include number of players and active players it’s an important metric. Subscription services like gamepass helps a lot and with the numbers Horizon 5 put up I think it’s helped Forza become more popular than GT

my mistake with the God of War numbers they were from what appears to be an outdated wiki but the settlement remains there are plenty of MS games that are as big IP wise as their Sony counterparts.

But how many people paid full price for a GamePass subscription rather than using a $1 conversion? What about people who subbed for a month to try out some games during the holidays and afterwards let their subscription lapse? Or people who tried out FH5 but dropped it within a couple of hours? Those are factors you would need to consider if you want to point out Uncharted 4 has been bundled for years, which personally, I think is a bit hyperbolic. To add, Sony sold around 60M units of first party software in 2020, bundles are not nearly as prevalent as some want to believe when it comes to PlayStation first party game sales.

The point being, while player numbers are a good indicator of a games popularity, an evergreen title like GT7 could end up with 30M - 40M players despite selling only 20M+ units lifetime similar to Uncharted 4. 

 People who have played the game directly correlates to popularity....

Fortnite, Forza Horizon and Apex Legends no longer popular cos sales bad?!? Sounds like a poorly thought out clickbait article to me.

But how many people paid full price for a GamePass subscription rather than using a $1 conversion? What about people who subbed for a month to try out some games during the holidays and afterwards let their subscription lapse? Or people who tried out FH5 but dropped it within a couple of hours? Those are factors you would need to consider if you want to point out Uncharted 4 has been bundled for years, which personally, I think is a bit hyperbolic. To add, Sony sold around 60M units of first party software in 2020, bundles are not nearly as prevalent as some want to believe when it comes to PlayStation first party game sales.

The point being, while player numbers are a good indicator of a games popularity, an evergreen title like GT7 could end up with 30M - 40M players despite selling only 20M+ units lifetime similar to Uncharted 4.