It's been nearly two weeks since Microsoft revealed their successor to the Xbox 360. For anyone not up to speed, I suggest you watch the reveal right here:
As you can see in the video above, the new console is the Xbox One. The reveal was certainly a talking point amongst game journalists in the week following the press conference, and for good reason. There was a lot of information to take in, and lot of questions left unanswered.
I watched the event and even took notes, not something I normally do. As someone who primarily games on the 360, I was taking note of this progression in the Xbox lineage. Like many people, I had a lot of mixed feelings about the whole thing. I had intended to write up my initial impressions, but all the noise after the event left me reeling. There were so many new developments emerging for days that either confirmed, denied or contradicted many talking points.
Now that the dust has settled quite a bit in anticipation of E3, which starts in just about a week and a half, I felt this was a good time to finally put my thoughts into words. I don't want to recap the whole press conference; I'd rather focus on my personal feelings on the new system. So, if you're not up to speed, watch the reveal video above, then join me in the deep end...
The Name
When I first heard the name, I didn't think much of it. In the aftermath since the reveal, I've found out just how many people were upset by it. And I just don't...get it. I don't really refer to the original XBox as "XBox 1," because the 360 is not the "XBox 2." Also, think about it a bit more: 360 was a reference to the number of degrees in a circle. The "One" of XBox One can be looked at as, "XBox has come full circle." Heck, the O in "One" is a damn circle. But, moreover, the simple fact is that Microsoft is putting a HUGE focus on the Xbox One being a media hub for the living room. They want it to be the "one" piece of equipment people will need, the single source for all home entertainment.
The Console's Look
Sure, it just looks like a box. In fact, it looks a helluva lot like a cable box (I'm thinking that was probably not an accident). I don't mind the look much, but it doesn't really attract me. Many bloggers and journalists were commenting on how big it looked. And, yeah, it does look pretty big. Then, there's this:
Burnie Burns at RoosterTeeth found this image on Twitter shared it in their
gaming podcast. It really puts the size of the XBox One into perspective. And I have to say that it seems quite manageable and only slightly larger than the current slim-model 360s. The length of two standard pens, is not too bad.
The Controller
Personally, I think it's pretty sexy. Microsoft has really dominated controller design (at least since they updated the original "Duke" controller of the first Xbox) and that doesn't seem to be changing. For the most part, much of the main components seems to have been left intact. Microsoft quoted a total of 40 "innovations" to the controller and I like what I'm seeing so far. What's really fascinating is one of the new features being integrated into the guts of this thing: trigger feedback. There are servos that can add resistance to the triggers. The possibilities of this are awesome: feel pushback when pulling the trigger of a gun, a tick when cooking a grenade, the engine rumble when revving a car's engine, etc. Honestly, this is one of the few things I've heard of since the Wii that sounds like it could actually add to my gaming experience. I see a lot of creative things developers could do with this.
The Kinect
Kinect has been updated and it sounds like it is going to be quite a bit more responsive. All of the updates seem pretty rad, truth be told. But, I'm still not sure how I feel about Kinect being required for the console to work. On a personal level, I just simply don't know where I'm going to put it. I recently had to hide my Kinect because my 15 month-old daughter found out she could reach it, and started slamming it into the entertainment center and the TV. It's unclear at this point if the Kinect can be covered up and still allow the Xbox to function, but this requirement has a lot of people slinging "Big Brother" accusations. And, indeed, they may be right. There is a lot of speculation on the intertubez that Kinect is going to be gathering data about you, your family, your home, hour habits, etc and Microsoft selling that to advertisers. I think this is a legitimate concern and I'd like to hear Microsoft address it at E3.
The Operating System(s) and Specs
XBox One is going to have three operating systems: an XBox OS, Windows, and a bridge to connect the two. To me, someone who knows very little about such things, this doesn't seem to mean much. But, it does seem like a lot to be running under the hood all at once. What kind of hardware will this thing need to run a triple-OS set up? Well,
here's a breakdown and comparison to the PS4 specs. I know enough about hardware specs to look at these two and see that they are pretty much equivalent. I don't think we're going to see a drastic difference in processing power between the two consoles. Both of them increased their total RAM by a factor of 8 which is a massive improvement. XBox One may have 3GB reserved for the multitasking capabilities, but 5GB of RAM strictly for gaming is still pretty damn good, considering it and the PS3 each only had 512 MB. There's also a game DVR, that will allow capturing game video for easy editing on the console and sharing.
Snap Mode and Multitasking
I don't know how much I care about this, really. I mainly just play games on my 360. Netflix is normally reserved for the PS3 in my house, mainly because of the interface and speed. I don't really care about Skype-ing with anyone when I'm gaming or watching a show/movie. If I want to Skype, I turn shit off and Skype. I like to give the person I'm talking to my undivided attention. I can see some benefit for some people, such as sports fans. I imaging being able to talk to your buddies in real-time while watching a football game would be pretty cool. I think social media is going to be the biggest draw with Snap Mode. No matter what you're doing on the TV, go into snap mode and catch up on your Facebook or Twitter feed. I think I like that.
Live TV
I'm kind of intrigued by this, and I want to know a lot more. Will XBox One just act as a navigation tool for a separate cable box? Will it have a traditional DVR (separate from the "gaming DVR" mentioned in the press conference)? I kind of like being able to change channels with my voice instead of having to mash on a remote in order to find the 13 channels I normally watch. But, again, how will DVR be handled? Will XBox One just play what it's given by a normal DVR through the HDMI input? So many questions.
Halo Series and Exclusive Games
Very commendable, Microsoft. You finally realized you have two exclusive IPs and you are expanding that to 15. You're still reaching for DLC-first rights, but I don't think anyone really cares. Not many games were shown off, but that's okay; it was a hardware reveal. The whole point was to get the hardware reveal out of the way so they can focus on games at E3. At least, I hope that's what they're doing. The Halo series, and the inclusion of Steven Spielberg, sounds great! I'm legitimately excited for this. I haven't watched Forward Unto Dawn just yet, but it's in my Netflix queue. Bring it on!
Gaming
Microsoft has swallowed their pride and included a BluRay player this time around, which I'm really glad to see as a consumer. But, really, this is more of a concern for watching movies on physical media. Games are required to be installed on the hard drive, and Microsoft's 300,000 servers are going to act as a cloud to source some aspects of the game, such as AI and persistent world data (which may indicate MMO possibilities). There hasn't been a solid confirmation whether the disc will need to be in the drive in order to play the game, though. One popular theory is that a physical game disc serves as basically a licensing vehicle.
Reports have surfaced that say games will be licensed to individuals via an online connection and have to be deactivated when sold or given to others. This has led people to surmise the license-vehicle hunch regarding the game discs. At least Microsoft seems to be backing away from insinuating that there will be any sort of fee involved with used/traded games. Regardless, I wonder how they are going to approach households with multiple gamers. In my case, my wife plays a lot of games, and both of our kids have shown an interest. Will all four of us need a license to play a game? If so, that very well may be a deal breaker. Honestly.
XBox Live and Achievements
XBL seems to be remaining pretty much the same. There hasn't been much of anything said about it, which leads me to believe that nothing's happening. It would be really great if Microsoft dropped the membership fee needed to play multiplayer games, but I doubt that's going to happen. Achievements will be transferred to the new console, which is pretty cool. There has also been talk about "dynamic achievements," but that has been pretty vague so far.
Compatibility and Indie Games
Simply put, the architecture of the XBox One makes backwards compatibility impossible. I can understand that, as crappy as it is. I guess I'll just be holding on to my 360 for a while, so I can finish up my backlog of games. What makes this a bit worse, though, is that even downloadable games will not be compatible with the new hardware - at least at launch. I have a feeling many older games will be ported as downloadables, much like has been done for games from the first Xbox. It seems like this shouldn't be too hard. Unfortunately, though, indie developers will no longer be able to self-publish their games. They will be required to have a publisher and provide them a share of profits. Additionally, the XBox One is no longer going to differentiate between full retail releases, Arcade releases, and indie projects. I worry about indie games getting swallowed up in a seemingly endless sea of games. This lack of differentiation may lead to a lack of visibility and could end up killing the indie market on Xbox. I think it's a nice intention for Microsoft wanting to put all games on equal ground...but they just aren't the same.
In the end, I feel like a lot of people had a knee-jerk reaction to the XBox One - and it was generally negative. I was not terribly impressed, personally. The overwhelming negativity online as well as Microsoft's apparent backpedaling on a lot of issues didn't help (particularly the used game fee issue). But, there were a few things that cut the negativity with some humor, especially how much Sony started to troll Microsoft. Before the Microsoft event, Sony began to send out notices that the PS4 console was going to be revealed the day before E3. Considering Microsoft will have the first major press conference at E3, it's like Sony's just goading them. There was also the fact that
Sony's stock jumped after the XBox One reveal. That made me laugh just a little bit (read: I giggled like a school girl).
I still have mixed feelings about the XBox One, but I have warmed up to it just a bit. I think some of the really important information, such as pricing, final answers to the "always on" issue, etc will come at E3 and Gamescom in the next couple of months. I'm trying not to judge it too harshly until I know more concrete facts. At this point, a lot of what people are saying are facts are really just conjuncture based on what veiled information Microsoft has offered so far.
If you're interested in hearing some intelligent discussion about the XBox One, here are my recommendations:
