The holidays may still be months away, but a new wave of console wars between the PlayStation and Xbox One camps is brewing for the 2015 holiday season if Microsoft is to be believed.
At a podcast interview with GamerTagRadio after Microsoft's presentation at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), Microsoft Xbox marketing executive Aaron Greenberg shared his thoughts about the company's exclusive lineup of games. Greenberg highlighted the fact that the Xbox One has more games confirmed as exclusives to it as opposed to the PlayStation 4. While he agrees that Sony put on a great show this year, he adds that the advantage still belongs with Microsoft.
"It was interesting because both showed off 25 games and 11 exclusive games," notes Greenberg. "We showed 7 exclusives coming this Holiday and at least from our count we did not see any of their [exclusive]games confirmed for this year," he said at the interview. Microsoft has announced at E3 that Halo 5, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Forza Motorsport 6, Fable Legends, Rare Replay, and Gigantic will all be exclusive to their gaming platform.
On top of the exclusive titles shown at the presentation, the Xbox One lineup for E3 2015 promises a lot more diversity with their revelation that Xbox 360 discs will likewise be supported by the Xbox One via emulation without any need for modifications. Regarding the Xbox 360 support, Greenberg said that, "This is something that with the architecture design we were not expected to do but we have some of the brightest software engineers in the world."
While titles will be subject for whitelisting, Microsoft claims that about a hundred titles will be available, with more being added. In an apparent dig against rival Sony, Microsoft drops a line during the conference that says, "we won't make you pay for games you already own."
This push for backwards compatibility with legacy titles is considered by many as an incentive for current Xbox 360 owners to upgrade to the Xbox One; in contrast, the announcement from Sony that the PlayStation 4 will no longer support titles from earlier versions of the consoles will limit the number of playable games on the platform. In conclusion, Greenberg says that "We are expecting millions of those gamers to move over this holiday."
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