Did the Infamous Console Wars End in 2025? What Is Microsoft’s Uncertain Future in Game Consoles?
Console wars have been a part of the gaming world ever since the Intellivision released to compete with the Atari 2600 (and if you know what those two consoles are, you’re awesome). Since then, we had the Nintendo vs. Sega rivalry of the nineties, then as the millennium dawned, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo fought for dominance, which is a fight that continues to the present day.
Or does it? 2025 marked a lot of changes in the world of gaming. The Sony vs. Microsoft battle that has gone on for over two decades might finally be winding down, and as for Nintendo, well, they seem to be happy with doing their own thing and functioning separately from Sony and Microsoft. So what caused this shift?
Microsoft and the Console Wars
As reported by Insider Gaming, some controversial decisions on Microsoft’s part might eventually lead to the Xbox’s demise. It began in the last console generation, when the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One were duking it out. The Xbox One attempted to be more of a multimedia console instead of just a gaming system. When the system first came out, it required the controversial Kinect motion sensor in order to function, though after complaints, newer Xbox One models no longer required the Kinect.
The Xbox one also had fewer exclusive games than in past generations. However, the Xbox Game Pass, a digital subscription service that offered a large library of games for subscribers, helped to keep Microsoft in the running. This service included some Xbox-exclusive games, which helped to lure gamers to support Microsoft’s console.
Did the Console Wars End in 2025?
In 2025, Microsoft infamously raised the prices for Xbox Game Pass subscriptions, leading to customer dissatisfaction and cancellations. Of course, this is hardly an isolated incident, seeing as how Trump’s tariffs and general inflation have caused numerous prices to go up, but dissatisfied customers are dissatisfied customers, and once they cancel their subscriptions and discover that they don’t miss them, they aren’t likely to come back. Still Game Pass remains a lucrative service – at least for now.
However, video game consoles live and die on their exclusive offerings. If a console doesn’t offer anything that its competitors don’t, customers aren’t likely to shell out hundreds of extra dollars for it. This is where Microsoft has suffered in recent years. The Xbox Series X/S already has fewer exclusives than its predecessors, but Microsoft has always had Halo as its exclusive trump card to lure players in – until now.
The upcoming remake of Halo: Combat Evolved will be released on both Xbox and PlayStation 5, which left many Xbox fans floored in shock. It was like the first time a Sonic the Hedgehog game was released on a Nintendo console. Of course, Sonic was left homeless when Sega bowed out of the console race after the Sega Dreamcast failed, so could a similar fate be awaiting Master Chief? Is the Xbox Series X/S the last generation of Microsoft consoles?
The Future of the Console Wars
Without compelling exclusives, gamers are left without a convincing reason to buy Xbox consoles, which might also lead them to question the console wars as a whole. Now, Halo: Combat Evolved is a remake, not a new mainline game, but what happens if the next completely original Halo game is released on Sony’s consoles as well? Perhaps Microsoft will be content to focus on PCs instead of game consoles in the near future.
So what happens to the console wars if Microsoft bows out? Since Sony and Nintendo have not focused on outdoing each other for years, perhaps they will simply coexist in peace, each content with their own niches. Or, who knows, perhaps Sega will decide to enter the console race again and start the console wars up once more.
