Which Console Won Q4 2017?

PlayStation 4

The PlayStation 4 got quite a few excellent exclusives this year. However, most of them fell into the first three quarters. Disappointingly, the console didn’t offer any concrete competition on the gaming front in Q4. Admittedly, the console didn’t need them. Plenty of gamers used the holiday to catch up on games they had missed out on from earlier in the year, like Horizon Zero Dawn and NieR: Automata. However, no PlayStation 4 exclusives were quite able to match the Switch’s Super Mario Odyssey or Xenoblade Chronicles 2. The Xbox One and PC at least tried, offering players exclusives like Forza Motorsport 7 and A Mortician’s Tale.

The PlayStation 4 lost its title as the most powerful console as well. The PS4 Pro, which has been tiptoeing around the concept of 4K gaming all year, couldn’t compete with the new Xbox One X. The Xbox One X, though more expensive, offers increased graphical power and runs games at a native 4K at 60fps. The PS4 Pro can do the same, but it usually can only manage a native 4K at 30fps or use fancy graphical tricks to make a game look like it’s running at 4K. The Xbox One is making strides to catch up with the graphical superiority of the PC, so it was a little disappointing to see the PlayStation 4 make no move in the latter half of 2017 to catch up.

Ultimately, the PlayStation 4 lost Q4 2017. The console had a great year overall, but it lost most of its steam right at the end by conceding console superiority to the Xbox One and game exclusivity superiority to the Switch.

Xbox One

The newest iteration of the Xbox One released during Q4 2017. Known as the Xbox One X, it is the most powerful video game console on the market. It still cannot challenge the graphical prominence that PC has held onto for years, but it’s the first time one of the big three has ever made a true stride towards 4K gaming. For that alone it outpaces the PlayStation 4, but it still falls short of the rest of its competition for its lack of quality exclusive titles.

The Xbox One has been outpaced by the PlayStation 4 and Switch all 2017 when it comes to exclusives. Q4 should have been the shining moment for the console. The Switch only offered two triple-A exclusives going into the holiday: Super Mario Odyssey and Xenoblade Chronicles 2. The PlayStation 4 was content to sit back and let their Q1-Q3 games feed their holiday sales. Meanwhile, the Xbox One went into the holiday season with the best iteration of their console to date. With a few quality exclusives, the console could have easily dominated Q4. Yet outside of Forza Motorsport 7, the Xbox One didn’t offer gamers much of anything.

Super Lucky’s Tale could have been a decent game to challenge Super Mario Odyssey. The two are both 3D platformers, and the former plays more like a successor to Spyro than to 3D Mario. However, the Xbox One let Super Lucky’s Tale release quietly without much hype. The game’s creators seemed content to let the game fall victim to Super Mario Odyssey’s shadow. Because of their decision, the game never stood a chance. Games that were hyped up on the other hand, like Hello Neighbor, released to general disappointment. Q4, like Q1-Q3, was not good for Xbox One’s game library.

Xbox One’s biggest success in Q4 is finally answering a question it’s been struggling with the past few years. The console has never really seemed to know what it wanted to be. Players know PlayStation 4 is the place to go for powerful narratives, and the Switch has carved a name for itself as the console with titles that celebrate innovative mechanics and gaming on the go. It was never very clear what the Xbox One wanted to be before the Xbox One X. Now, the Xbox One finally has a rallying cry to get behind: a console with graphical power.

If a player wants true 4K gaming and a way to play Blu-ray in native 4K HDR, then they have to rely on Xbox One. It’s the only console that offers anything comparable to a PC without actually buying or building a PC. That’s a message that the console can get behind to help promote itself back to the top of the food chain. It’s still disappointing that Xbox didn’t take advantage of the temporary void of exclusives from its competitors in Q4 2017, but at least the company used these past three months to finally give their console an actual agenda to follow. The Xbox One can become a contender for the throne again because of it.

Switch

Like the PlayStation 4, the Switch didn’t release a new variation of the console to combat the new Xbox One X. Not that that’s surprising, as the Switch was released in March, and the console has demonstrated all year that it doesn’t need that graphical power to compete with the PS4 or Xbox One either. The console is content to let those two duke it out while it continues to release games that celebrate mechanics and gamer ingenuity.

Unlike PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the Switch did release some quality exclusives in Q4. They weren’t just triple-A titles either. Games like Battle Chef Brigade and Floor Kids proved immediately popular, and continued to support the theory that the Switch is the best place for high-end quality indie games to go.

The Switch stuck to its guns in Q4, for better and for worse. The console offered players more excellent games to play, continued to be fun to play in both console and handheld modes, kept appearing on store shelves at a steady pace, and made sure to include room for both first and third-party games on the eShop. However, it also continued to utilize an online party chat system that’s years behind both Xbox One and PlayStation 4, and Nintendo still doesn’t offer any means for gamers to play games from previous generations like Sony and Microsoft have done with their consoles. A virtual console would have been a phenomenal present to receive for the holidays.

However, these flaws don’t really detract from the console’s positives. They’re mostly nitpicks that many players, myself included, wish Nintendo would change.

Final Winner

The Switch was the definite winner when it came to Q4. Unlike Xbox, the Switch has long known what it is and used Q4 to continue to fulfill the promise it’s made to its players. And unlike PlayStation, the Switch wasn’t content to simply ride on the success of its previous quarters and continued to outfit its library with an impressive array of exclusives.

It’s true that the Switch cannot compare to the PS4 Pro or Xbox One X in terms of graphical power, and has an in-game library and online chat system that still pales in comparison to the other two consoles, but it more than makes up for its shortcomings with the impressive number of titles it was able to add to its roster in the final months of 2017. Both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One will have to regroup and strategize in Q1 2018 to regain the momentum they lost to their newest rival.