“One for All, and All for One.” That is the rallying cry and the market positioning behind the new Microsoft Xbox One, a motto so all-encompassing it convinced Redmond to retrograde the branding concept back to a “first-edition” name. In fact, the new Xbox is far advanced from version 1.0 bringing such next-gen features as voice command, cloud integration, and universal gestures to the system. The familiar Xbox Live home screen is one feature that legacy users will recognize.
Voice commands immediately recognizes the user and will instantly turn the console on by saying “Xbox on.” With “instant switching,” users can switch from gaming, TV and Web browsing seamlessly. Instead of “One,” the new name could have been called Multi called “Snap mode” lets users run multiple programs at the same time, including making group Skype calls in high-definition.
A feature called Xbox One Guide lets users scroll through a show guide, call for specific TV shows or change channels with voice command.
“No more memorizing channels or hunting for the remote control,” said senior vice president Yusuf Mehdisaid.
The Xbox One comes with an upgraded controller. Microsoft says the new device has 40 new design innovations, including impulse triggers, Wi-Fi direct radio stack, integrated battery compartment and a precision directional pad.
The console will come with 8 gigabyes of RAM, a Blu-ray drive, USB 3.0 connector and HDMI in and out. The system runs on three systems in one: Xbox operating system, Windows Kernel and a combination of the two that enables multitasking.
Xbox Live is getting an upgrade, as well. To support the new cloud-based features, Xbox Live will run on 300,000 servers for the Xbox One — up from 3,000 servers for Xbox 360.
Always Online?
Another new feature of Xbox One lets users install any game from the disc to the console’s hard drive, and then play that game whenever they like without having to put the disc in. “On the new Xbox, all game discs are installed to the HDD to play,” said Microsoft in a report by Wired.
What follows is that each disc would have to be tied to a unique Xbox Live account, else you could take a single disc and pass it between everyone you know and copy the game over and over. Each disc must then only install for a single owner.
Microsoft said that if a disc was used with a second account, that owner would be given the option to pay a fee and install the game from the disc, which would then mean that the new account would also own the game and could play it without the disc.
But what if a second person simply wanted to put the disc in and play the game without installing, asked Wired, and without paying extra? In other words, what happens to our traditional concept of a “used game”? Microsoft did not yet have an answer to this question, and it is surely something that game buyers (as well as renters and lenders) will want to know.
The other questions pertain to the “always online” premise– that is, that single-player games would require a constant online connection to function. Here’s the difference. Xbox One will give game developers the ability to create games that use Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing service, which means that they might be able to offload certain computing tasks to the cloud rather than process them on the Xbox One hardware itself. This would necessitate the game requiring a connection.
Are developers forced to create games that have these online features, and are thus not playable offline? They are not, accordiing to an Xbox exec. So the always-online future may come in incremental steps.
Microsoft also announced a partnership with film director Steven Spielberg and 343 industries to create an exclusive TV show of the blockbuster title “Halo.”
The NFL is also partnering with Xbox to create a fully immersive experience that lets fans switch between watching a game to checking fantasy football statistic in the Xbox ecosystem, using SmartGlass and Kinect.
Xbox One will be available worldwide “later this year.” Microsoft will reveal more details and games at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). There are no current details on pricing. It’s also unknown if the Xbox One is backwards compatible with the Xbox 360.
Microsoft’s competitor Sony is also launching its next-generation game console, the PlayStation 4, later this year. Nintendo released the Wii U in 2012.
The original Xbox 360 debuted in 2001 and its successor the Xbox 360 was unveiled in 2005. [24×7]
