Xbox One - 10 things you need to know
Microsoft’s Xbox One launch event was short and to the point. Lots of details were left out or glossed over, no doubt to be covered at E3 in June, but we now know an awful lot about what the Xbox One will be like.
The basic specs are much as was rumoured before launch. The Xbox One specs include an eight-core AMD processor, 8GB of RAM and a 500GB hard drive, while games will install directly to the hard drive in full. We don’t know precisely how the Xbox One hardware compares to the PS4, but for a general idea we suggest you take a look at our Xbox One vs. PS4 comparison.
Meanwhile, let’s take a look at the 10 Xbox One features that you really need to know about…
1. Just say ‘Xbox On’ to turn it on the Xbox One
Microsoft has made ‘natural language’ one of the core principles of the Xbox One. This means you can tell your Xbox One to switch to a specific TV channel, launch a specific game or conduct a search, all using voice commands. Best of all, however, is you can turn it on just by saying ‘Xbox On’.
2. Instant switching between games and apps
When the Xbox 360 launched, it just played games. It doesn’t anymore. You can listen to music, watch films and TVs and much more besides, but switching between all these features takes forever. It’s particularly annoying when you want to watch TV.
Microsoft promises an end to such delays with Xbox One. In the launch demo, it demonstrated how you can switch between any game, any app and to watching live TV with no delay at all. It means the using your Xbox One to watch live TV will be as seamless and instantaneous as a normal TV.
It does this using three separate operating systems – one to run the main part of the console, and two others to deal with TV and other features not vital to playing actual games. Clever.
3. Xbox One is ‘practically’ silent
Can you hear that? Well, Microsoft reckons you can’t. During the launch demonstration, it claimed the Xbox One is ‘practically’ silent. That’s an interesting choice of words. What will this mean in practice? Well, hopefully it means you won’t hear it whirring away when you’re watching TV, and when you’re playing games it will just whisper quietly rather than generating a small tornado beneath your TV.
4. Xbox One controller buttons have built-in feedback
Controller feedback hasn’t evolved that much since Nintendo put a whopping great big plastic module on the controller and called it ‘force feedback’. Ok, it was built into the controller and became a little more nuanced, but the new Xbox One controller adds feedback into the actual triggers, which sounds very cool. You feel things through your fingers after all, so feedback where your fingers actually rest seems like a cool idea. Or it could be a naff gimmick – we’ll have to wait and see.
5. The Xbox One is not just ‘smart’ TV, it’s interactive TV
There’s no shortage of smart TVs, but few can claim to be genuinely interactive. Microsoft reckons TV on Xbox One is exactly that. You can snap apps to the side of the screen as you watch, so you can search using internet explorer, or see what people are saying about what you’re watching without interruption.
How? Well don’t get too excited – it doesn’t have TV tuners built-in, or anything like that. Instead it has an HDMI input, which means you can plug your PVR or set-top box – no matter who provides it – into it and control it using your Xbox One. It’s a neat, if not new, idea, but it does mean you can’t replace your TV box with an Xbox One alone.
6. The Xbox One has a Blu-ray drive
Yes, yes, PS3 owners, a Blu-ray drive is so 2007, but the fact Xbox One has one is still interesting. One, because it shows there’s still a future (for the time being) in physical copies of games; and two, because it means you buy an Xbox One and ditch the Blu-ray drive under your TV if you so please. Considering the Xbox One looks like a seriously big ol’ box itself, your TV cabinet will thank you for it.
7. New Kinect can detect your heartbeat and six people at once
Microsoft claims Kinect on Xbox One is far more detailed and accurate, but the most interesting feature is it can detect your heartbeat. The boring way to use this would be for fitness games, and no doubt many a fitness will use this to make the fitness features more useful.
That’s fine if you’re into that kind of stuff, but we can see game developers doing far more interesting things. Imagine, for example, a stealth game using your heartbeat to monitor your stress levels, impeding your performance the more stressed you become? It’s just an idea…it might not even work, but we’re sure game developers will find ways to use it.
It also has a wider field of vision and can detect six ‘skeletons’ (otherwise known as ‘people’) at the same time. Good news if you have a big living room – not much use if you don’t.
8. Kinect is included in the box
Hands up who bought a Kinect for their Xbox 360? That many, eh? Neat as some its initial ideas were, Microsoft could never take full advantage given many owners didn’t have Kinect. Simple solution? Include it in the box. Every Xbox One will come with a Kinect camera. That means you can have group chats using Skype you lucky devils.
9. Cloud-based processing
Now this is an interesting one. Details were in short supply, but the basic idea is that developers can use remote servers to move some processing tasks from the console. This could extend the life of the console as it struggles to keep up with demands in future, but forget about it if you don’t have a fast connection… perhaps this was the always-on future everyone was taking about, and Microsoft didn’t mention at all during the launch.
10. Xbox One backwards compatibility? Forget it
Most guess this beforehand, but it bears repeating: the Xbox One is not backwards compatible with Xbox 360 games. This is bad news for current owners who want to play their favourite games on the new console, but on the plus side it opens up the chance for loads of ‘Ultra HD’ remakes… a potential gold mine for publishers, but… well, we’ll have to pay for them, won’t we? Bugger.
