Everyone else will walk around this issue, I’ll confront it directly. If you demand graphical fidelity for consoles to curve its spine backwards, figure out The Master Theory of the universe, and provide you sexual favors, your expectations are misplaced. Right, now that those twelve other people are away, you and I can have a chat about consoles. I’ve been thinking about doing this for a while, as I grab for one controller over another every time I want to play a game. In fact, the catalyst was bothering to install GOG Galaxy 2.0 and spending a while integrating over one thousand games into one simple, easy to correlate place.

You see, with GOG’s recent updates to the DRM-free launcher, you can pool all the games you own. A majority of them anyway, in my case. Physically owned or not, if the systems you connect to GOG detect that you’ve played a game on those connected systems, and launchers, you’ll see it in your library. However, with this feature you can also see some very boring data, personal data I like to crawl through from time to time. Why yes, I am a very boring man with too much time on my hands, hence why I spent over an hour collecting all this data by logging into and connecting every console and launcher.

I will say, it is not perfect. I know I’ve played some games for stupid amounts of hours at any given time. However, unlike Steam or any PC launcher worth its salt these days, consoles don’t always keep this data on record. I’d go as far enough to say Sony hates it and Microsoft couldn’t care if you want to know boring numbers; The former wants the Fortnite crowd in the next generation, and Microsoft knows that Halo fans don’t care. Ok, now I’ve insulted everyone, I’ll talk to myself about my favorite consoles. For you see, that is where this analytical data becomes a little more interesting.

Ignore that I know I’ve played more than 80-hours of The Witcher 3, easily over 100-hours in Fallout 4, and a stupid number of hours in Grand Theft Auto V. According to GOG 2.0, I’ve never touched those games in my life, the achievements I have in them are gone like the wind, and all my memories are simply mere moments of a glitch in the Matrix. According to the still-shaky launcher, I’ve only played Minecraft for a single day. So creating that massive Starship Enterprise-D in survival was a waste of time.

Nevertheless, eight of my top ten games (by time spent in them) are on the Xbox One. We’ll ignore that I’ve played “325-hours and 36-minutes” of Formula 1 2019, mostly because that will be beaten by the time the official release of F1 2020 comes out (probably). What I want to focus on is my former opinion of the Microsoft consoles. I hated them. I still despise the controllers. The 360 controllers just feel wrong in my hands. Yet I will proudly say I think the Xbox One is fantastic.

I could dedicate a whole section of this article to the Xbox One Elite controller, and I probably will in a minute. Nonetheless, I think the reason I would boot this little binder of quiet hatred up is, it’s a games console that turned itself around. See, I’m fortunate enough to have all the fiddly know-how of an electrician or engineer, with the stupidity of someone who spouts their opinions on the internet. That’s a long-winded way of saying that I can sit next to my computer, have both running, and I can be doing something on each. I don’t need the “media center” it was once announced as. On the PS4 there is Spotify built-in, a media library that’s front and center, and a whole host of other useless faff.

With Microsoft wanting to be Apple, the Windows 10 nonsense isn’t without issues on the Xbox One. I’d say that is the central issue with the console. Yet I never touch the media library, the apps, or Microsoft Word on the console. I’ve got a working PC next to me (most of the time) for that. This might also be a case of having multiple PC monitors, allowing me to both play a game and watch a video your mum and I made. Joking aside, I can multitask, such as during the time I spent 325-hours flinging a car dressed as a bullet through the air and around corners at 160+ MPH.

As I’ve said, it is the console I jump to when I want to play something. That’s because this past generation that we’re leaving now has been the most superficial of them all so far. As Taylor said on Monday, the leap in generation between the PS2 and Xbox era to PS3 and Xbox 360 was huge. This generation’s jump to 4K in the middle of its own lifespan still hasn’t come to crop all that well either, and probably won’t for some time. I’ll stick by my point that 4K and shinier graphics don’t add anything to the experience, 1080P is clear enough when you’re sitting only a couple of feet from a monitor. The same could be said when you’re 10-15 feet away from a large TV.

Have I used 4K on this Xbox One? Yes, and I did so for the purposes of the Red Dead Redemption 2 review. It made frame rates more unstable in Saint-Denis, and didn’t enhance my experience of being a cowboy hunting pesky rabbits (or wabbits). Enhanced color depth with the HDR options available made night times in faux New Orleans look gorgeous, as I walked around like a normal person. Gas-lit street lamps, the dark starry night, and the atmosphere of this mid-second industrial revolution-era town is magical. The predicament we have is that we’re already in that position of breathtaking graphics, though this line will likely age like store-brand cheese.

The only jump forward is full-VR with a bodysuit, so we can feel and invoke punches as if we were there. To ask every console generation to take a jump, even in the middle of the generation like we’re talking about iPhones, is stupid. Yes, both Sony and Microsoft blinked as soon as 4K was available, they saw money and gullible people. The inter-generational consoles did one thing, they gave some much-needed power to run games towards the end of the generation that can use more than the base console’s own stamina.

Yet why am I jumping to the Xbox One more than my PS4? Exclusives. The Xbox One doesn’t have fantastic blockbuster IP that can shift consoles, nevermind games, on their own. Halo, Gears of War, and Forza aren’t going to make the non-hyper engaged gamer leap for their wallet to buy the new monolith, or rather Xbox Series X. Sony have the IP that both shifts consoles and games just by the name, Spider-Man being exclusive is selling consoles like no other. Sony built and continue to build a platform around catering for just about everyone from Movie fans, TV fans and comic book nerds, to book worms and everything else. Microsoft hasn’t.

Microsoft’s biggest selling exclusive IP is something it bought, and the basis of Minecraft isn’t within an external piece of entertainment. For better or worse, Microsoft has stuck games on their gaming platform. While Sony welcomes the outsiders, Microsoft’s solitary external exclusive came as Metro‘s first game released, which was shared with PC players. If I want an exclusive other than Forza, most of the time I’m looking at Sony to deliver. As much as I’ve been pleasing Xbox fans for the last few paragraphs, Sony is just more interesting when they release an exclusive.

Days Gone, Ghost of Tsushima, The Last of Us: Part II, and upcoming PS5 exclusives might be outliers, but Ratchet & Clank alone stands the test of time. Mike almost confirms my point with the PS4 in his review of Disintegration, he had to dust off the awkward monstrosity of noise. Between countless numbers of friends and acquaintances stating they either have to dust off their console or don’t like it as a result of its noise, they are talking about the PS4. I’m often finding myself in the same boat, hating to record videos for our YouTube channel with that whining abomination.

Design alone makes the Xbox One look normal, and doesn’t poke me in the ribs as I move it from one room to another. I’ll gripe about the UI/UX on both consoles until I’m unable to any longer, but the Xbox One does put games ahead of Netflix or anything else. In fact, the Xbox One will give you an option of the last five or so items (games or apps) you clicked on, with apps being completely ignorable. This is putting aside the controller, which I’ll state that I’ve never personally used the standard controller that came with the console.

The Xbox One Elite controller is a beautifully balanced, comfortable, and magically designed piece of brilliance with customization available for individuals. I can not stand the standard Xbox controller’s concave analog sticks, I don’t even like the PS4’s version of that either. Growing up with the PS2 and PS3’s convex sticks, I prefer that option given to me by the Elite controller. The rubber grips on the underside feel great conversely to the hard plastic of the standard, and it feels like a more durable controller. I think it is up there with the PS2 controller for the title of “best of all time.”

How about the console then? Where does that sit? Honestly, I’ve gotten more mileage out of the Xbox One in two years than I did of the last five with the PS4. The downhill disappointment that was the PS3-era only ekes out past the Xbox One because I know I played quite a lot of games, mostly enjoyed them, and when it was a bit crap it was only momentarily. It doesn’t pass the Xbox One by much; The PS3 in retrospect, was fine. I’m sure the one Nintendo fan that quickly ran to the end for me to yell, “But the Switch is perfect, and Nintendo can do no wrong,” is pretty angry with me right now. For me, the Switch is hoisted by its own petard.

To me, the Nintendo Switch is coming in a close second to the DS. The DS had more to prove, and prove it that plucky little box of hand craps did. The entire DS range (including 3DS and 2DS) lasted over ten-years. It was built on the foundation of small game sizes and the smart ideas of the Gameboy, along with interesting games. While the Switch is doing its own thing away from Sony and Microsoft’s d-d-d-duel, there hasn’t been anything particularly new or more interesting than we have had before. I’d welcome a Pokémon Go-like game that takes advantage of the handheld capability of the Switch. 

I’ve stated it before and I’ll state it again, the Switch is a solid toilet-gaming console and is much better than a mobile phone. Meanwhile, the PS4 is a noisy box of interesting exclusives. Yet the Xbox One is a games console. In possibly the most even playing field the PlayStation and Xbox brands have been on, the Xbox One doesn’t over complicate itself with a physical design made to harm. There is a controller that is perfection itself, and a majority of the time it has the same games as its competitor. Should everyone go out and buy one? No, buy a PlayStation 4 or a Nintendo Switch if you want current-gen exclusives; Or a high-end spec-ed PC for games in general.

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