This article was originally published on June 12, 2026 - read the full issue

By Patrick Garratt

"Gears, Halo, and Spyro Headline Xbox Games Showcase 2026." So said the header for Microsoft's PR release last week detailing its highest-profile forthcoming Xbox releases. Given that Gears Of War launched in 2006, Halo in 2001 and Spyro The Dragon in 1998, the announcement could have been made 20 years ago. Interpreting such an apparently acute case of sequelitis as the result of Xbox's 25th anniversary celebrations this year would be easy had last week's State Of Play from Sony not exhibited exactly the same tendency: PlayStation right now, the company said, is God Of War (2005), Silent Hill (1999) and Tomb Raider (1996). 

There were, of course, newer franchises in both showcases, but the question remains: is the risk calculus surrounding new triple-A IP really so broken that videogaming's premium consoles have to be structured around only the most "legacy" of properties? Is third-person or first-person action from the biggest, safest franchises really the only sound foundation for PlayStation, Xbox and the next hardware generation? 

The answer, unfortunately, is yes. The reasoning is a little clearer in Microsoft's case. The Xbox project isn't so much in the middle of an identity crisis, as currently burning out its fourth therapist while upping its repeat Prozac prescription. Having been so roundly drubbed by PlayStation 5 in raw unit sales, Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond pointedly shifted Xbox's focus away from the console and software exclusivity towards the brand as service, towards Game Pass, multi-platform distribution and hardware partnerships, starting with Xbox-branded Ally handhelds from Asus. But incoming Xbox boss Asha Sharma has in recent weeks put the console back at the project's centre, and stated clearly that the Xbox brand needs to have exclusive software in order to reverse its fortunes. That those games should be inXile's Clockwork Revolution – a game that proudly wears influences from 2007's BioShock – and the eighth iteration of Gears Of War indicates a lack of coherence between Sharma's intent and the reality of making and publishing high-risk videogames. For now at least. 

Sony's adherence to past safeties may rest on risk aversion rather than a lack of identity, but it's no less structural. More than 90 million PS5 consoles have been sold globally to date, tripling estimated sales of current-generation Xboxes, and putting Sony's hardware mission on safe footing. But while the PlayStation landscape has always been more artistically flexible and focused on large-budget titles centring character development – versus Microsoft's preference for plot-driven narrative (compare The Last Of Us and God Of War to Gears Of War and Halo) – last week's State Of Play opened with the spectacularly violent Wolverine (the broader MCU is literally the world's largest entertainment franchise), before listing Until Dawn, Tomb Raider, Silent Hill and the Rayman Legends remake as pillars, and therefore reasons to invest in PlayStation.

What we saw from Sony and Microsoft's summer showcases signifies not only an end-game stage to the "creative crisis" that's enveloped triple-A for many years, but proof that large-scale development is now reserved solely for the very safest bets. A third-party example of the terrifying risk now faced by companies in this space is IO's 007 First Light, released in late May to sales of over three million within two weeks. The game's development budget was daunting at around $200 million, but it was built by one of the most respected names in third-person action development and was, critically, locked to one of the world's most successful media franchises (Bond has generated revenue of more than $7 billion, putting it alongside the likes of Avengers and Fast & Furious in terms of commercial reach). As for software on the same scale from Microsoft and Sony, Playground's Fable remains one of the few large-team UK projects left alongside GTA, and backroom chatter has recently centred on the potential consequences for the British development industry – and the direction of Asha Sharma's Xbox leadership – if the rebooted action RPG fails. 

Add the fact that the lines around the console space are constantly blurring – as Xbox's recent handheld ambitions and uncertainty over the position of the main Xbox console attest – and that rising component prices are obviously disastrous for "premium" console manufacturers while playing directly into the hands of those with hardware propositions of more modest specs, and Sony and Microsoft look to be standing on thin ice. From a content perspective, if the videogame as contemporary social narrative has shifted almost exclusively to indie development and Steam because PlayStation and Xbox are led by familiar-looking action games and a constant churning of decades-old franchises, doesn't that leave the incoming hardware generation serving only existing fans? 

"And here's to the next 25," read the message at the end of the introduction to the Xbox Games Showcase 2026, after thanking Xbox buyers for supporting Microsoft's console for two-and-a-half decades. If Project Helix and another God Of War are at the centre of another quarter century of console business for Microsoft and Sony, let's hope that statement doesn't age like milk.

This article was originally published on June 12, 2026 - read the full issue