Microsoft executive defends Xbox One X "most launch titles ever for a console" marketing

Leading up to the Xbox One X’s launch, many of the company’s top executives touted that the system would have the “most launch titles ever for a console.” Those are some big words, and some people found this a bit misleading seeing that every Xbox One game is compatible with the Xbox One X. There is a distinction between those games and those specifically enhanced for the console, and Xbox’s Marketing Director Albert Penello defended the wording on the Resetera forums.

“Serious question. Most modern consoles launched with ~20 titles on day one. I’m not talking back-compat – I’m talking new titles that take advantage of the new platform. This can be re-masters, games that ship on past-gen and new gen, or new-gen exclusives. Quick search: X1 had 22. PS4 had 23, Pro had 30. Going back; 360 had 18 and PS3 had 14. Playstation 1 had 10.

We had over 50 Xbox One X Enhanced titles on launch day; 67 as of today.

When I check this list – I see nothing all the way back in the neighborhood of 50.

What am I missing?”

He went on to clarify the statement further.

“In every console launch I have been a part of, the number of “launch titles” has always been a metric. As you know, I was doing a number of interviews prior to launch, and at the top of many lists of questions was “how many launch titles will you have that take advantage of the new console?” In fact, many people leading up to launch were suggesting that developers would not heavily support this console. So my assumption based on the number of questions I was getting was that the launch title metric was still important.

So – I did some research and realized that we were going to have more “launch titles” than any other console.

Now – if you were to count “playable titles” that honor would go to the PlayStation 3 by a wide margin, having the HW ability to play the PS1 and PS2 games would have put it in the thousands.

If I ever said we had more total titles to play, I misspoke. I think what we said was that we had more Launch Titles, which is quantifiably true, and I think I explained what I meant by that number on GB as well.”

While some would argue that enhanced titles are not actually launch titles, Penello feels differently.

“For this point, I disagree since I watched the industry use the exact same term for the PS4 Pro launch.

Sony themselves talked about 40 launch titles. So if I say 50 launch titles, why am I spinning?

https://blog.us.playstation.com/2016/11/03/39-games-enhanced-for-ps4-pro-launch/

I’m really trying to understand how anything we said was spin, damage control or PR. We used the same terms.”

The semantics of it can certainly be argued, but the Xbox One X does currently have around 70 enhanced titles, with 50 of those available on the console’s release. However you feel about the messaging, it is fair to promote the Xbox One X’s enhanced titles as launch titles similar to how Sony promoted games upgraded for PlayStation 4 Pro as launch titles as well.

Via DualShockers