The console wars have been raging for as long as anyone can remember. Only the participants have changed. In the late 80s, Atari was competing with Nintendo and Sega, while nowadays, it's Microsoft competing with Nintendo and Sony. Except, things are a lot more complicated now. In 2022, gaming is much more than cartridges and consoles.

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The services have evolved, and so has the video game industry. Everyone competes on every front, whether video games, hardware, merchandise, or subscriptions. This can make it difficult to determine who exactly is leading the market and providing the best services. That said, Microsoft's Xbox store does boast a few big advantages over its Playstation and Nintendo counterparts.

10 More Frequent Sales

10 - Better More Frequent Sales

Any good platform allows players to enjoy the game in the most cost-effective way possible. One way of doing so is to have frequent sales. A great example of a platform that continually offers is Steam, which always has various amazing discounts for its player base.

Apart from PC, there are stores for Nintendo, PlayStation, and Xbox, which also offer sales. However, players are more likely to find good discounts and better prices in the Microsoft Xbox store than in the other two digital storefronts.

9 Optimized Games

9 - Optimized Games

While gaming on a PC is pretty good, it has multiple downsides. One such downside is the game optimization, as everyone in the PC community has slightly different hardware, and it's not possible for a developer to optimize the game based on every possible configuration. While the consoles were free of these optimization issues a few years ago, the new wave of consoles has completely changed that.

Now, there are too many similar versions of a single game out there, and it can be hard to pick the one that works best. Thankfully, the Xbox store offers optimized games. In comparison, things are a bit confusing on Sony and Nintendo's sides.

8 Cheapest Way To Enjoy The Most

8 - Cheapest Way To Enjoy The Most

This one Xbox feature trumps everything Nintendo and Sony can put out to the table. At least for now. The Microsoft Xbox Game Pass is probably the cheapest way to enjoy the most games possible. The $1 starting price is practically impossible to compete with unless one of the other companies makes their version of the game pass free.

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With the Xbox Game Pass on the Microsoft Store, players can enjoy over 300 full games without paying a single extra penny. If that isn't enough, Microsoft's first-party games usually arrive at the Xbox Game Pass on day one.

7 Minimal UI Less Clutter

7 - Minimal UI Less Clutter

Everyone loves a nice clean room with nothing on the floor. At the same time, almost everyone dislikes clutter, mess, and untidy rooms. The reason is quite simple, the less chaos there is, the more hygienic it feels. The same is true for user interfaces of online websites and in-game stores.

When it comes to the Microsoft Xbox Store, things are perfectly laid out for players to see, and everything is visible at a glance. Additionally, there are many options to sort the games out. While PlayStation also has a minimal user interface, Nintendo is still quite a mess.

6 Less About Merchandise More About Games

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Nobody likes having advertisements thrown in their faces, which is why many people opt for premium services to cut down the time they spend watching ads for things they do not need. The Microsoft Xbox Store, PlayStation Store, and Nintendo Store are all made to sell video games. However, some stores, like Nintendo's, take it too far with their merchandise advertisements.

When a player visits the Xbox store, all they'll see are video games. However, when visiting the Nintendo store, players will see Amiibo, leg straps, microSD cards, clutch-style console cases, and much more. The absurdity is truly crazy, as the advertisements for "Cuddly & collectible character plushies" is put before actual games in the store.

5 Smart Delivery

5 - Smart Delivery

Microsoft describes its Smart Delivery as "a new technology introduced with Xbox Series X|S consoles. When purchasing a game with Smart Delivery, the best version of the game is automatically delivered to your console, regardless of generation – no extra steps required from you."

In simple terms, Smart Delivery means players will not have to hassle and figure out things in the store. Instead, they can visit the game page, buy the game, sit back and enjoy it on whatever platform they own. Things like Smart Delivery aren't part of Nintendo or PlayStation stores yet, which gives another point to the Microsoft Store.

4 Buy Once, Play Anywhere

4 - Buy Once, Play Anywhere

When someone buys a car, they can drive it anywhere they want to. When someone gets a burger, they can enjoy it at home or somewhere outside. However, video games aren't like that. For example, Grand Theft Auto 5 is available on PS3, but a person who owns it doesn't get the PS4 version for free.

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Instead, the player will have to spend additional money to play the game on PS4 and even more money to play it on PS5. This practice of not giving players complete access to what they're buying is pretty trash. Xbox Store doesn't do that. Instead, it lets people buy once and enjoy the game anywhere else in the Microsoft sphere.

3 Your Progress Matters

3 - Your Progress Matters

Another thing that Microsoft Xbox Store offers that Nintendo and PlayStation do not are cross-platform saves. Every major game on the store allows players to continue their games on different Microsoft platforms if they want to. On Sony, if a person purchases Marvel's Spider-Man Miles Morales on PS4, the save progression would not carry over to the PlayStation 5 version.

The same is true for saves between Nintendo games on different platforms. However, Xbox games carry the progression without the user doing anything, and the store does a great job at mentioning it with a single phrase.

2 Better Cloud Gaming Service

2 - Better Cloud Gaming Service

Cloud gaming has still not reached its true potential in most countries, and, until it does that, it's hard to pick a clear winner here. However, the convenience of accessing the Xbox Cloud Gaming (Beta) with Xbox Game Pass is incredibly easy due to the UI and UX of the Microsoft store.

The Nintendo store still has no good cloud gaming service other than the Nintendo Switch Cloud Streaming, which offers very few games. The PlayStation streaming service is a little better, but it doesn't hold a candle to the deadly combination of XCloud & Game Pass.

1 Has More Games & Supports Older Titles

1 - Has More Games & Supports Older Titles

The best thing Microsoft's Xbox store does is the preservation of older games, and boy, is the library huge. From Xbox 360 games like Alan Wake, Dragon Age: Origins, the Dead Space series, Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, and Sonic Generations to original Xbox games such as Armed and Dangerous and Black and Blinx, there are just too many classics for players to enjoy.

Backward compatibility is a major part of Microsoft's stance and its store. This is something that is completely missing from the Nintendo Switch store and is only partially available on the PlayStation store and only to those who pay more for one of the premium tiers of PlayStation Plus.

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