22nd May 2013, 6:49 PM
Yeah, so MS revealed the system with a 1-hour conference yesterday. And yes, I watched it, even though I wasn't expecting it to be all that great. MS's last few E3 conferences have been mediocre at best, after all.
And, well, my worst expectations were upheld. At the conference they showed very few games, and spent most of the hour on the numerous TV functions of the thing (watch TV and switch to a game with voice command in the of-course-mandatory Kinect 2! Respond to live TV, just like Nintendo and Sony are also doing this gen! Fantasy football on Xbox One! ESPN! Etc.). Yeah, it was pretty tedious.
As for games, the first actual games that were shown was an EA Sports trailer, with prerendered clips of Madden, FIFA, and such. Yeah. Awesome. Other than that, all they showed was no-actual-gameplay-just-in-engine-stuff-shown bits of Forza and the multiplatform COD: Ghosts. And that's pretty much it. Oh, and there's a Halo TV series upcoming.
They did not, of course, say at the conference anything about the always-online or anti-used-games elements, but outside of it, we've heard that the system will have to connect to MS servers at least once every 24 hours. So you can take it offline, but not for longer than a day if you plan on using the thing. That is quite draconian, obviously. The system also will have mandatory installs. Games don't play off of the discs, they play off of the HDD. That 500GB HDD it comes with by default is going to fill up VERY fast.
As for used games, MS claims that there will be some form of used-games support, but have refused to explain the details. We'll see, but I'm going to guess that either they won't have any after all, or there'll be some system where when you sell the disc to certain authorized retailers (who would be the only ones who could take them or something) they'll disable it from your console after you sell it, or something (remember, must call home every 24 hours!). Oh, and the person buying the used copy may or may not have to pay a fee to MS in order to switch over the license, if they allow used sales at all. We'll see, but it will definitely be the most locked-down console ever released. This is, obviously, very bad for consumers. Very, very bad. At least on the PC, even if used games are mostly dead, there are regular sales to get recent games for $5... I'd never expect that on consoles. Just full-price games which they lock to your system.
And as I said, the Kinect 2 is REQUIRED. Do not unplug it if you want to use the system. It's Microsoft's Big Brother in action! And yes, it works as the microphone for online games too -- there's no headset support, apparently. And as the camera costs quite a bit, the system's underpowered compared to PS4 -- the PS4's GPU is somewhere between 33% and 50% more powerful than the XO's. And for what, a camera that's moderately amusing for TV stuff and atrocious for games? I mean, I think the Wiimote is a good controller, but Kinect... no. Not for any serious game.
Oh, the Xbox One also has a poorly chosen name, too -- Xbox, Xbox One, there's no way people could confuse those, right? -- and is overly large, as well. It doesn't really look like a console, but like a set-top box.
But of course, given the focus of the presentation, that is almost certainly entirely intentional.
Finally, the event was held at MS HQ... and some press people (Adam Sessler, and others) have said that the frequent applause at the conference was not coming from the press section. So yeah, MS packed the back of the theater with employees and had them cheer, it seems. Otherwise it'd have been quite deservedly silent in there.
Overall though, the conference was well worth watching. It's interesting seeing this stuff live, even when it's as tediously boring and anti-consumer as this presentation was.
As for the controller, it's like a 360 controller but with a better-looking dpad and the Start and Back buttons were replaced with other things. I'm not entirely sure what they do, MS didn't explain at the conference.
Oh, and lastly... it might be HDMI-out only. Couldn't use it on my TV then, unless adapters work... my HDTV just has component (and composite, s-video, and rf).
And, well, my worst expectations were upheld. At the conference they showed very few games, and spent most of the hour on the numerous TV functions of the thing (watch TV and switch to a game with voice command in the of-course-mandatory Kinect 2! Respond to live TV, just like Nintendo and Sony are also doing this gen! Fantasy football on Xbox One! ESPN! Etc.). Yeah, it was pretty tedious.
As for games, the first actual games that were shown was an EA Sports trailer, with prerendered clips of Madden, FIFA, and such. Yeah. Awesome. Other than that, all they showed was no-actual-gameplay-just-in-engine-stuff-shown bits of Forza and the multiplatform COD: Ghosts. And that's pretty much it. Oh, and there's a Halo TV series upcoming.
They did not, of course, say at the conference anything about the always-online or anti-used-games elements, but outside of it, we've heard that the system will have to connect to MS servers at least once every 24 hours. So you can take it offline, but not for longer than a day if you plan on using the thing. That is quite draconian, obviously. The system also will have mandatory installs. Games don't play off of the discs, they play off of the HDD. That 500GB HDD it comes with by default is going to fill up VERY fast.
As for used games, MS claims that there will be some form of used-games support, but have refused to explain the details. We'll see, but I'm going to guess that either they won't have any after all, or there'll be some system where when you sell the disc to certain authorized retailers (who would be the only ones who could take them or something) they'll disable it from your console after you sell it, or something (remember, must call home every 24 hours!). Oh, and the person buying the used copy may or may not have to pay a fee to MS in order to switch over the license, if they allow used sales at all. We'll see, but it will definitely be the most locked-down console ever released. This is, obviously, very bad for consumers. Very, very bad. At least on the PC, even if used games are mostly dead, there are regular sales to get recent games for $5... I'd never expect that on consoles. Just full-price games which they lock to your system.
And as I said, the Kinect 2 is REQUIRED. Do not unplug it if you want to use the system. It's Microsoft's Big Brother in action! And yes, it works as the microphone for online games too -- there's no headset support, apparently. And as the camera costs quite a bit, the system's underpowered compared to PS4 -- the PS4's GPU is somewhere between 33% and 50% more powerful than the XO's. And for what, a camera that's moderately amusing for TV stuff and atrocious for games? I mean, I think the Wiimote is a good controller, but Kinect... no. Not for any serious game.
Oh, the Xbox One also has a poorly chosen name, too -- Xbox, Xbox One, there's no way people could confuse those, right? -- and is overly large, as well. It doesn't really look like a console, but like a set-top box.
But of course, given the focus of the presentation, that is almost certainly entirely intentional.
Finally, the event was held at MS HQ... and some press people (Adam Sessler, and others) have said that the frequent applause at the conference was not coming from the press section. So yeah, MS packed the back of the theater with employees and had them cheer, it seems. Otherwise it'd have been quite deservedly silent in there.
Overall though, the conference was well worth watching. It's interesting seeing this stuff live, even when it's as tediously boring and anti-consumer as this presentation was.
As for the controller, it's like a 360 controller but with a better-looking dpad and the Start and Back buttons were replaced with other things. I'm not entirely sure what they do, MS didn't explain at the conference.
Oh, and lastly... it might be HDMI-out only. Couldn't use it on my TV then, unless adapters work... my HDTV just has component (and composite, s-video, and rf).