However that has all the time been the danger with console gaming. You’d choose the system that had the video games you wished probably the most at that second, figuring out full nicely you’d additionally miss out on the exclusives that ended up on different consoles. Hopefully, although, no matter you chose would nonetheless have a deep library for years to return.
It’s not an ideal system, however in the end, competitors in any market is nice and may encourage console makers to do every part they will to courtroom consumers with higher unique video games and options. At the very least that’s how the console house used to work for many of its five-decade historical past.
However it’s 2025 now, and I can at present play Helldivers 2, a Sony recreation, on my Xbox Collection X, or I can fireplace up Forza Horizon 5, a part of a longtime Microsoft franchise, on my PlayStation 5.
Sega left the {hardware} market way back and freely places its classics and new video games alike on nearly something that can run them. That features the Nintendo Change 2, which is an effective way to play (barely) inferior moveable variations of just about each third-party recreation in the marketplace, together with Indiana Jones and the Nice Circle, an Xbox Studios recreation that’s already hit the PS5 and will probably be debuting on the Change 2 in 2026.
We’ve come a great distance from the console wars of the ‘90s and 2000s, the place exclusives offered methods, and it appeared like a conspiracy principle that Crash Bandicoot may find yourself on the N64 or Grasp Chief might take the battle to PS2.
In principle, the large three console makers ought to have a bevy of exclusives ready within the wings to courtroom avid gamers to their respective corners. In actuality, fashionable console gaming signifies that until you’re into the ultra-niche Japanese video games that solely seem on PlayStation, you would simply flip a coin, and no matter you wish to play will most likely present up there finally. And a variety of these obscure video games nonetheless find yourself on Xbox, too, should you wait lengthy sufficient.
