So 2013 saw the release and
battle of the next generation’s consoles. No matter where you’re from it was
pretty big news. Big enough to even feature as a theme in South Park‘s brilliant season seventeen
three-parter that hurled the console wars into the mix with Game of Thrones and the madness of Black Friday. Both
Sony’s PlayStation 4 and Microsoft’s Xbox One rock some
pretty advanced features, but of course both have problems. Let’s delve into
what makes the Xbox One great, as well as its flaws.
The Xbox One features voice
recognition software that powers the console. This makes it easy for the
console’s user to give the Xbox One clear voice commands which it can then
carry out, such as ‘Xbox on,’ or ‘Xbox, TV’. Due to the new built-in Kinect,
the Xbox One can also be controlled with gestures, like a simple swipe of the
hand, or by grabbing and dragging things.
The new Kinect has a 1080p
camera and thus offers such a high standard of movement-tracking that it can
even detect the slightest wrist movements, meaning that the possibilities for
the gesture control are vast and numerous when the waggling of individual
digits could mean individual commands.
The new Kinect is even smart
enough to recognise different people by identifying their faces. It syncs and
stores this information with this person’s Gamertag and Xbox Live account
should they sign on to a friend’s console. This means that if several people
are gaming on one console which has all of their information stored, the camera
on the Kinect is able to identify which player is holding the controller in
order to do things such as update a game’s scores.
The Xbox One also has a better
and more improved version of Skype – although this is hardly surprising as both
are made by Microsoft. The new version of Skype released for Xbox One features
an original HD video-conferencing mode, which works through the updated Kinect.
You can also Skype with your friends whilst watching TV or playing a game.
Although the price of Xbox Live
hasn’t changed, there are many new features this version brings to the table.
It now runs off 300,000 servers – that’s more than the entire world’s computing
power in 1999! All of your data – from movies, TV, games, apps, music and more
– is to be stored on Microsoft’s servers on something called ‘The Cloud’.
There are also several new
features to Xbox Live that come along with the Xbox One. The worn five-star
reputation system has been greatly updated, with a more consistent filtering of
the players with a lower reputation. This means that all those trolls will
eventually be locked in dungeons away from any decent people actually trying to
play a game.
Finding an online lobby has
also changed. Used to be you just entered a lobby and waited for players. With
the new Party Scout system on Xbox One, you can specify exactly what you are
looking for: people with certain DLC, age, skill, level, language, and more!
Also thanks to the new integrated entertainment features of the Xbox One,
players can now switch to TV or the internet whilst your device continues
hunting for a lobby.
The Xbox One also comes with a
new Game DVR feature, which means you can easily record and share footage of
your gameplay. Due to Twitch TV, gamers will also be able to stream any game
live to viewers online as well as being permitted to view other gamers’ live
streams.
The rewards for completing
achievements have also changed, too, as well as the addition of new
achievements. They will now grant you things like artwork, map unlocks, and
in-game character and item unlocks. Every app on the Xbox One can do this, not
just the games, although it is only the games that earn you Gamerscore. When
starting a game, the Xbox One now show the player how close they are to gaining
certain achievements, as well as how close their friends are to unlocking them
too.
The Xbox One also features a
new mode that means it will automatically download and install system software
updates when connected to the internet, meaning there’s no more waiting for the
updates to download and install when you’ve just turned your console on. It
also creates a personalised, ad-free home screen for each individual player.
The new Xbox One has taken away
some of the more frustrating features of previous generation gaming. One such
thing is the non-regionalisation of games. This means that any game from any
country can be played on any Xbox One, granted that the game’s publisher hasn’t
restricted it.
The Xbox One has 8 GB of
memory, as well as a gathering of USB ports, and a Blu-Ray player. The Xbox One
also has a HDMI input, meaning that for those of you who will keep your Xbox 360, you will be able to plug it in to
your Xbox One and run it through that as you can’t play Xbox 360 games on your
new Xbox One.
The Xbox One runs on three
operating systems: the Xbox One system, a Windows 8 kernel, and a third
operating system made by Microsoft to act as glue between the two main
operating systems. This helps aid the seamlessness of the ability to switch
between games, TV, the web and any other apps.
It can clearly be seen why the
Xbox One has been marketed as more than just a video game console. Microsoft is
really trying to change the home entertainment ecosystem by building a machine
that does everything. This was their first discussion point in their press
release for the Xbox One, and they even went on to refer to the Xbox One as an
‘entertainment console’ rather than a ‘video game console’.
So there are many interesting
and outright cool features about the Xbox One. But there are also some niggling
concerns that give gamers cause for pause.
One of the largest concerns for
gamers moving to the next generation is the issue raised by used games and
whether or not gamers would have to pay an extra fee on top of the retail fee
in order to play their second-hand games. Microsoft’s Major Nelson (Larry Hyrb)
addressed the issue of pre-owned games saying “We have only confirmed that we
designed Xbox One to enable our customers to trade in and resell games at
retail. Beyond that, we have not confirmed any specific scenarios.”
This leaves some ambiguity on
whether or not a gamer has to pay an extra fee upon buying a pre-owned game.
Major Nelson also stated “should you choose to play your game at your friend’s
house, there is no fee to play that game while you are signed in to your
profile.” But this only makes matters more unclear – if not signed in to your
profile do you have to pay an extra fee? If so, then this would mean any gamer
buying a second-hand game would have to pay the extra fee.
It has also been confirmed that
the Xbox One will not have to be always connected to the
internet and will work offline. However, it does need to connect to the internet every
24 hours to function. So this means that there would be no using your Xbox One
somewhere remote and lacking an internet connection.
My final down-point about the
Xbox One is the new version of Kinect. Yes, it has some pretty cool features.
And yes, it is extremely advanced. But do you not find a little strange how it
lacks any viable off mode? How it isalways watching you? Microsoft have
registered for a patent that would allow the Xbox One’s Kinect to identify the
number of people in the room and potentially restrict content based on whether
it verifies their right to the product. This has unlimited negative potential.
One such example would be if there are unregistered users of Netflix in the room, the Kinect could identify
them and thus disallow the viewers the ability to watch certain content. Although
this is only speculation so early on, Microsoft have been vague about the
matter yet again, simply stating “Microsoft regularly applies for and receives
patents as part of its business practice; not all patents applied for or
received will be incorporated into a Microsoft product.”
Although it is still early days
with the next-gen machines, it’s clear that Microsoft are trying to step it up
a notch, however, which is something all gamers have been thirsting for since
the release of the last generation’s consoles. Sure it may have some problems,
but we still live in an age where technology is growing (albeit rapidly) and
nothing is initially problem free. We here at The Fact Site would be delighted
to know what you do and don’t like about the Xbox One if you have it. And if
you don’t, then why? As ever, thanks for reading.
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