We’ve just concluded Polygon’s search for the game of this console generation (first-party division). Limiting ourselves to pitting Sony and Microsoft’s in-house games against each other was a convenient way to break the brackets up into two halves, a tongue-in-cheek tip of the hat to a console war that seems to be nearing its end, and a recognition of the fact that legendary console-exclusive games like Halo, Wii Sports, or The Last of Us so often define the systems they ship on.
Our eventual winner Astro Bot couldn’t be more deeply embedded in that tradition. It’s a mascot platformer: the most emblematic kind of platform exclusive, in the lineage of Mario and Sonic. And it openly celebrates 30 years of PlayStation history, even touting its status as a hardware showcase within the game, as Astro strives to collect the component parts of his PS5-shaped starship. On the fifth anniversary of the two consoles’ release, it’s a fitting winner.
But can we really call it definitive? The days of the console exclusive are numbered, and the walls of this traditional bulwark of the game industry are crumbling. Of the eight Microsoft games we presented for voters to choose from, all are available on Windows PC, three on PS5, and one on Switch. Given Microsoft’s much-discussed retreat from exclusives, this is hardly a surprise. But on the Sony side, it’s not an entirely dissimilar story. As it stands, there are only three genuine PS5 exclusives among the eight games; the rest are available on Windows PC, and yes, one is on Xbox.
If platform exclusives are dying, generational exclusives are starting to look a little unwell, too. Players have taken longer to upgrade their consoles than ever before this generation, and third-party publishers and developers have followed suit. Many of the best games of the generation — Elden Ring, God of War Ragnarӧk, Cyberpunk 2077, Metaphor: ReFantazio — have also been available to play on PS4 and Xbox One. This year, five years into the life of the new consoles, games in top-selling series like EA Sports FC 26 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 are still getting last-gen versions.
As the boundaries between generations and rival consoles blur, and costly tech advances show diminishing returns, it feels like we’re still waiting for the game that will define these consoles and make sense of why we bought them in the first place.
That game will most likely be Grand Theft Auto 6. Its trailers certainly look stunning, and if there’s one developer that knows how to both push technological boundaries and seize the cultural zeitgeist, it’s Rockstar Games. Rockstar has always shown a restless ambition to increase the density, scope, and verisimilitude of its virtual worlds, and to ensure its themes and storytelling stay ahead of the curve. Its games are huge cultural events.
It’s unthinkable that GTA 6 won’t deliver. But Rockstar does have a hill to climb. This will be the first GTA game made without lead writer and creative mastermind Dan Houser, and development is mired in controversy after a series of leaks and the firing of a sizable number of key developers in the UK. Rockstar’s record of landing troubled, long-gestating productions like L.A. Noire and Red Dead Redemption 2 suggests it will manage to bring the game home, but not without things getting a little hairy.
It says everything about how lost this console generation has been that, following two delays, its defining game will arrive on the sixth anniversary of the two consoles in November 2026. That’s a little late in the day; Xbox at least is expected to debut its next-generation hardware the following year. It’s also a long time to wait to be given a compelling argument for the console you bought — or a compelling argument to upgrade, if you’re one of those holdouts still playing EA Sports games and Call of Duty on your PS4.
The next-gen wow factor has been too elusive this generation — and far, far too costly to produce. In AAA gaming, development budgets and schedules are getting out of control. GTA 6 is scheduled to be released eight years after Rockstar’s last game, Red Dead Redemption 2 — that’s a gap as long as, or longer than, the typical gap between one console generation and the next. This isn’t a problem for Rockstar, whose GTA 5 is still enjoying massive success after being released for three successive generations. But it might be a problem for the wider industry, for the console manufacturers, and for players who are beginning to wonder why they need to keep upgrading their hardware every seven years.
For PS5 and Xbox Series X, and for the traditional console model, everything rides on GTA 6 hitting its mark. No pressure.
The best Xbox Game Pass games to play this weekend (Nov. 14
