With today’s news that Outriders is coming to Game Pass on day one, and last week’s revelations about Bethesda games likely being mostly exclusives now that Microsoft owns that swath of studios, there’s been an uproar from fanboys on both sides, shaking their spears at one another. But no matter which “side” of things you fall on, Microsoft’s aggressive moves can arguably be seen as a good thing (even if technically the monopolization/Disneyfication of the industry is a whole different subject to be discussed far beyond the context of the “console wars” as most fanboys know them).
The console wars are fought in the trenches by fanboys vehemently and blindly defending their positions for General Sony and Sergeant Microsoft. The truth at the top is a bit more nuanced. In fact, there’s really not a console war even happening on the corporate level. The corporations that fanboys go to war for don’t want or need the kind of toxicity that tends to fester on the fanboy battlefields. Sony is not at war with Microsoft. Xbox is not seeking to sink PlayStation. It’s all just… business. Sure, business is competition, to some degree. And Sony and Microsoft are competitors, to an extent. But business is also about growth, evolution, and challenging the status quo. Think about it this way: We wouldn’t even have PlayStation if Sony hadn’t made the kinds of bold and brazen moves that Microsoft is making toda...