If you've been following recent events in the world of video games, you'll be aware that big things are happening over at Xbox HQ.
Microsoft has been slowly but surely increasing the number of titles it releases on rival platforms, and this trend has arguably reached its apex with the news that Halo is coming to Sony's PS5.
That's right – Halo: Combat Evolved, the game which arguably fired the first shots in the battle between Sony and Microsoft, is coming to PlayStation in 2026 as Halo: Campaign Evolved. This would have been utterly unthinkable not so long ago, yet here we are.
In a good-natured attempt to capitalise on the seismic news, video game retailer GameStop posted a mock press release claiming that the console wars are finally over "two decades". Ahem.
"For the past two decades, the global gaming community has been engaged in an ongoing and increasingly petty conflict known as The Console Wars... said conflict originated in the early 2000s with the release of Halo: Combat Evolved as an Xbox-exclusive title," says the retailer in its tongue-in-cheek message on social media, before claiming that it would be "acting under its authority as a Neutral Entity and The World's Retail Gaming & Trade-in Destination, hereby declares the official cessation of the console wars."
What seems to have gotten a few people worked up is the fact that the Xbox vs. PlayStation war can hardly be considered as the starting point for such console-based conflicts; as many of the replies to GameStop's social post point out, Sega and Nintendo can arguably lay claim to hosting the first 'great' console war in the early '90s.
It's also worth noting that Sony and Microsoft are just two of the participants in the current console battle, with Nintendo being the seasoned, decades-old veteran who has arguably seen it all and is still capable of holding its own.
Of course, GameStop's intention was to highlight the battle between Sony and Microsoft, so it's easy to understand the framing of the (admittedly amusing) post – the issue is that there are a lot of 40-something gamers out there for whom the term 'Console War' will forever be associated with Mario and Sonic, not Master Chief and Kratos.
However, none of this was really intended to be taken seriously.