Microsoft's tenacity to add support for RTS games on Xbox earns praises from the gaming community

Even though Xbox has been in the news lately (and by lately, I mean the last years), the console is still not big enough to surpass PlayStation or Nintendo as the definitive gaming device. Even though it rules in some regions, such as the US, in other regions, Microsoft struggles to keep up the pace with the other consoles in terms of sales.

However, Xbox is doing something the other consoles aren’t: it’s slowly gaining praise and popularity among hardcore gamers, not only for its industry-standard gaming subscription model, the Game Pass, but for another thing. Are you ready to hear it? Inclusivity. And by that, I mean video game inclusivity, especially the once-popular but now-forgotten RTSs or Real-Time Strategy games.

These games, such as the Age of Empires franchise (with its beloved Age of Mythology spin-off) or the popular Starcraft and Warcraft franchises, were very popular in the early 2000s. But they were also very PC-coded, in the sense that they were made to be played on PCs.

Well, Microsoft saw a spark of opportunity. The Redmond-based tech giant took it: it brought RTS classics, such as Age of Empires and the more recent Age of Mythology: Retold (which is now available to play), to Xbox, as well. This allowed console gamers to try their hands on the classic RTS titles and genre, not with the usual mouse and keyboard but with Xbox controllers, and it worked.

The console is now being praised. In a Reddit post, the gaming community has come together to praise Xbox’s determination to keep the dying RTS genre alive.

For years RTS games have been in a decline. The “golden age” of RTS was over and no one really developed new RTS games. And yes I know that RTS games are not for everyone and that’s totally okay. But Microsoft/xbox continues to support and update games like the AGE OF franchise. Starting with releasing divinitive editions of the first three Age of Empires, then doing a completely new game, years after the last one (Age of Empires IV) and then they thought “hey we might figure out how that could work well with a controller” and released AGE 2 and 4 on Xbox without any compromises and with amazing controller support. Now they are soon releasing Age of Mythology again on PC and Xbox simultaneously in a couple of days. Even though the original from 2002 (I think) didn’t even sell that well. For RTS players it’s really one of the best things Xbox has done. Instead of focusing on the 500th uncharted or Batman Arkham “clone” they look to other directions and see what they can do.

Xbox is doing one AMAZING thing people don’t talk about enough: RTS games.
byu/MoodMaggot inxbox

Could Xbox be the answer for the RTS resurgence? Well, it seems so: Microsoft is releasing Age of games one after the other, not only on PC but also on Xbox. and many more are coming; the hotly-anticipated Age of Mythology: Retold is another classic that wasn’t so big (but it was really popular within the RTS community and often cited as one of the best games of the genre) at the beginning of the 2000s, but it might get big now thanks to its availability on the console.

The best thing is that RTS support is the biggest reason for many PC gamers to use Xbox as their main console.

So it’s a win-win situation. What do you think?