The Xbox One had its best year yet in 2016, rebounding from its disappointing launch in 2013 and growing from strength to strength thanks, in part, to a strong first-party line-up and the launch of the slimmed down Xbox One S. Indeed, the gap between Microsoft’s console and Sony’s PlayStation 4 has never been smaller, but it could well become even narrower in 2017, with the software giant expecting it to be a “special year” for the brand.
In recapping the year just gone, the post over on Xbox Wire counts the critical praise heaped on Gears of War 4 as well as the launch of the popular Xbox Play Anywhere program as two of its biggest highlights, with players logging a combined 265 million hours of play time on Xbox 360 games via the Xbox One’s Backwards Compatibility service. But all of that could well prove to be small celebrations in comparison to what’s to come.
“Looking forward, we expect 2017 to be a special year for Xbox gamers,” says Mike Nichols, Corporate Vice President of Marketing for Xbox, before stating that Microsoft “will not only launch the most powerful console ever in Project Scorpio,” but also “bring a number of exciting enhancements to Xbox Live.” Nichols doesn’t specify what shape those enhancements will take, but we can only assume they’ll include improvements to the Xbox One‘s interface and functionality.
Despite Nichols’ positive sentiment, 2017’s line-up of first-party exclusives is, as of now, looking a bit sparse. With the exception of Halo Wars 2, there are no other big name titles locked down for this year, with the likes of Scalebound and Crackdown 3 still without firm release dates. It’s still early days, though, so there’s still plenty of time for Microsoft to make some exciting announcements.