Doubt it, but we'll see.
Microsoft in January of 2020 told us that it was all about cross-gen for several years and that its expertise in scaling would erase any doubts of its approach to generations.
Then Halo took a dump and it was all, "WHOA, delete, delete, remove all Xbox One logos, no more talk of cross-gen, delete!"
So now in 2021, you really think Microsoft totally changed everything?
All those games that last year were planned as being part of Microsoft's cross-gen gameplan, now we think they're full-on next-gen games brand new, not-at-all-"cross-gen engines"? And they're all going to blow past everything Sony has been releasing steadily for the past year, both cross-gen and exclusive, because MS is no longer a cross-gen company (except for the cross-gen games it
does release)? And despite having shipped zero next-gen games exclusive as of today, we think that MS are the true masters of next-gen-exclusivity because they put an "Optimized for Xbox Series X" on their trailers and that means they're serious when they say, "
Games built using the Xbox Series X|S development kit are designed to take advantage of the unique capabilities of the Xbox Series X|S", while Sony just announcing its cross-gen ports (
after showing the actual games being played, in all cases so far except for GoW which has yet to be shown, so after gamers have had a chance to see the product in motion and debate its "next-gen'itiveness") means that they're all PS4+ games because who would ever build games on a next-gen system and port down when they could build for those old Jaguar cores and scale up (despite MS saying that that's what they're doing for all their games, including its cross-gen games) because their boss made a stupid "We believe in generations" comment? Really, we are so sure that these two companies are miles and miles apart and Sony is about to be blown off the map by the next-gen juggernaut that is Microsoft despite the fact that, game for game of everything we have seen, they are in practically the same boat of progress in 2021 game development and the only difference is that one shipped essentially every new game we have to talk about on these new consoles and the other has contributed a really nicely-done DLC and some remasters, and are we doubly-sure about this when the Next Gen Only company that hasn't shipped anything next gen only has already showed off its 2021-2022 slate at E3 and had so little to show that it had to bookend the opening and closing of the show with the works of the major publisher it bought to bolster its library while still not getting anything Next Gen Only out until a year from now?
...I mean, I don't know, maybe. Seems like naw tho. Be cool if they did, but I don't know.
I think they're both just making games as best they can and they're not that far apart. We are seeing the state of game development in 2021, and we have caught glimpses of what it looks like to plan for a 2022/2023 game, and they look a little different and better but they also look like they're nowhere near ready to bring to market because, unlike in past generations, the software was not in any state ready to be rushed for launch.
Hey, man, whoa, back off... We can have our favorites in the console war and it's fun to rap-battle the games, but don't be cursing the good name of Flight Simulator. Asobo Studio is good people, and any platform that enjoys a work like Flight Sim is lucky to have it. That boy stays gold!