Is Titanfall the Xbox One’s Saviour?

So Titanfall  just launched on the Xbox One and PC and will follow suit on the Xbox 360 in a matter of weeks. As Microsoft’s latest flagship console is lagging behind the PS4 by a couple million units, it begs the question: Is Titanfall  really the Xbox One’s saviour?

First of all, Titanfall  is a brand new IP (Intellectual Property) and certainly has a lot of hype surrounding it, but I don’t think it will have the audience pulling power of more established series that are exclusive to Xbox and are confirmed to be coming to the Xbox One, such as Halo 5  or the next Gears of War. It’s a shame this is the way it is because if all gamers had to choose from was sequel after sequel, the market would stagnate.

As I stated above, Titanfall  isn’t even a true exclusive to the Xbox One. If you really want to play it, but you don’t own an Xbox One, you can get it on PC too. And if you don’t mind waiting a couple of weeks, you’ll be able to get it for cheaper on the Xbox 360. Sure, not everyone likes PC gaming, and some people are incredibly impatient, so it was a smart tactic on Microsoft’s part to delay the Xbox 360 version as it may push a few impulse buyers into picking up an Xbox One, but I highly doubt it will push millions into buying one.

Surprisingly, there isn’t an offline component to Titanfall, so if you want to play it on a Microsoft platform, not only do you need to have the console and the game (obviously), but you’ll also need an Xbox Live Gold subscription to enjoy the game in any capacity (Yes, you need Gold to even play the campaign). A bunch of gamers out there still don’t really dabble in online gaming and are purely focused on single player content, so to not include that was a huge omission.

I put a large chunk of time into the Titanfall  beta on PC and there’s no denying it’s a great game; I just don’t think it’s what Microsoft needs to get a leg up over Sony. Now, it’s a bit silly to start claiming that a console has won the next-gen war this early into a new generation. I’m sure in a few years none of this will even matter, so that’s not what I’m going to do here, but as it stands Sony has quite a substantial lead in terms of consoles sold. It wouldn’t hurt Microsoft to have a killer app to help push a few more units. Putting that responsibility on Titanfall‘s shoulders could be more of a burden than you might think. Infamous: Second Son  is just around the corner, an exclusive for the PS4, which is reportedly already bringing in more pre-orders than The Last of Us, further proving my point that established IPs have more pulling power than brand new IPs. I feel like Microsoft needs to bring out an exclusive title of an established series as soon as possible to help combat this.

Don’t get me wrong; I like both Microsoft and Sony. I actually primarily played on a 360 last gen and I don’t want to see Microsoft fail by any stretch of the word. When sales figures for Titanfall  come out, it may prove that I’m completely off base and I hope I am proved wrong. My point is: if you have an Xbox One and you want to buy Titanfall, great! But if you don’t own an Xbox One, don’t feel compelled to part with your hard-earned cash until that absolute killer app comes out because you do have other ways to play Titanfall.