Xbox One preview: The good and the bad
By Jason Marcum
Jun. 10, 2013; Phoenix, AZ, USA: Phoenix Mercury center Brittney Griner plays NBA 2K13 on an Xbox in the teams locker room at the US Airways Center. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
The Xbox One is releasing this week, and many of the nation’s top video game-based websites and others are dishing out their reviews of Microsoft’s next-generation console. It arrives in North America and Europe on Friday, and gamers are anxiously awaiting the arrival of the video game system they will play for the next 4-5 years.
That is, if they opt for the One of Sony’s new Playstation 4. Both the Xbox One and the PS4 are state-of-the-art game machines, and for some, the difference will come down to price. At $500, the Xbox One costs $100 more, so there had better be some significant differences between the two.
Polygon.com thought the One’s size was one of it’s biggest negatives:
"The console lacks the profile and space-saving considerations of the PlayStation 4 — or even the original Xbox 360. Not only is the console larger than the original Xbox 360, but the new Kinect sensor is larger than the first one. Even the massive power brick from the last generation makes a not-so-welcome return."
One of the positives they noted was the addition of a Blue Ray drive, extra hard driver space and the use of WiFi direct:
"Lastly, unlike the Xbox 360, the Xbox One has a Blu-ray drive, meaning those of you with a soft spot for physical media won’t need to keep a second device around. That drive is partnered with a 500 GB internal hard drive, where all games are installed.The Xbox One also supports the Wi-Fi Direct standard for, well, direct wireless connections between devices. This kind of connection eliminates your wireless router from the equation, reducing latency and speeding up transfer speeds"
The WiFi direct can’t be overstated. It makes it much easier to take your One anywhere that has WiFi and allow you to directly connect to it and increase the internet speed, and thus, your ability to frag your opposition.
The Xbox One console comes with an Xbox One controller, Kinect camera, HDMI cable, power cable and power brick. It also comes with a chat headset, which Microsoft almost left out. And like the PlayStation 4, it only works through HDMI. Unlike the PS4, which has an internal power supply, you’ll need space on your shelf for the One’s power brick.
The motion-capturing camera Kinect, which is bundled with every One, is far more technically sound device than the original one on the 360. The camera can see a lot more of what is happening in the room, as it can sense the number of people, see their skeletons, monitor heartbeats and even recognize faces.
But the Kinect on the 360 was a major flop, and the public at large simply didn’t care that much for the use of motion-controlled gaming. Frankly, people should have the option to purchase the One without the use of the Kinect in order to help them save some money.
As far as graphics go, Microsoft promised eight times the graphical performance of the Xbox 360, yet the images in the games is almost equal to that of the PS4, which again is $100 dollars less.
While there are a number of things to look at and consider in this system, it’s hard to give it anything more than a 3.5/5 rating. While it clearly has most of the things you would ask of a next-gen console, the price is far-too demanding for today’s world. If you can afford the system, you’ll have a blast with it, but that price is just too-much for too many people to be able to purchase it, thus, it cannot be given a high rating…for now.
As time goes on, the price will hopefully drop along with the cost of the Xbox Live service, which will cost you another $50 per year. So if you’re new to the Xbox experience, you’ll be dishing out over $550 just for the system and the ability to use it online.