To say it’s been an “interesting few weeks” for the Xbox brand is an understatement. A little while back, the first reviews of its “dedicated handheld” highlighted once again how Microsoft is more interested in rushing out a product to promote it, versus making a complete product that people might actually like and want to buy. And then, just when things couldn’t get more hilarious, the gaming publisher announced the release of Halo on PlayStation, an event that has gotten a LOT of people talking about the “end of the console wars.”
One of the people talking about this move was the current president of the brand, Sarah Bond, who noted that, in her opinion, many gamers feel exclusivity is “antiquated” and that the company has “moved beyond that.” One person who wasn’t buying that was a former Xbox VP and former president of Blizzard Entertainment, Mike Ybarra. Check his Twitter reply to the interview in question:
Someone go tell Nintendo that exclusives are antiquated.
— Mike Ybarra 🎃 (@Qwik) October 23, 2025
Ouch. Oh, but it gets better. Because someone tried to bite back by saying that it was “Nintendo that is antiquated,” and Ybarra wasn’t having that at all:
Nintendo has continually dominated with outstanding games. Sure some platforms flopped, but they always took risk and came back very strong.
It is the opposite of antiquated. It is risk and return.
— Mike Ybarra 🎃 (@Qwik) October 23, 2025
And while that troll continued to try to prove his point, it’s actually incredibly easy to point out Mike Ybarra’s point. After all, just a few days ago, the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 versions of Pokemon Legends Z-A sold a combined 5.8 million units in under a week. Mario Kart World was a big enough launch exclusive to help propel the Switch 2 to nearly 6 million units sold in its first month, a world record, and on the OG Switch, the exclusives were so dominant that Nintendo had over 70 million sellers on the platform.
In short, Microsoft is giving up on exclusives, Sony is leaning away from them, and Nintendo is still dominating with them. Thus, if it is “the end of the console wars,” it’s pretty clear who won based on who has “changed their policies the least.”
