Hands-on from E3 2013
A lot can happen in eight years. When it launched the Xbox 360 back in 2005, Microsoft was the underdog, Xbox was a games-focused brand and the idea of streaming movies and TV to a console was beyond most peoples' horizon. Now 2013 sees Microsoft in arguably the strongest position of all the console manufactures, with its new console presented as the centre of a more general connected entertainment experience - as they like to call such things these days.
This isn't simply a games console, but the centrepiece of Microsoft's living-room ecosystem, bringing games, sports, TV, music and movies together in one device, working seamlessly with tablets through Xbox Smartglass and with voice and gesture controls through the second-generation of Kinect. It certainly does a lot of stuff, and much of it very well, but the big question we're left with at this year's E3 is whether it's stuff that people really need or want, and whether a little of the focus has been lost on games.
Xbox One - Hardware
In the flesh, concerns about the physical design of the Xbox One pretty much evaporate. While it is larger than the current Xbox 360 it doesn't have the infamous 'coffee table' dimensions of the original Xbox, and the new matt/gloss black two-tone finish looks pretty good. Pair it with the new compact and angular Kinect, and the two look like they should be part of a home entertainment setup, The Xbox One doesn't announce itself as a gaming device, and will happily settle in with the PVR or Blu-ray player below your flat-screen TV.
There's not much to see at the front - just the Blu-ray drive and the Xbox logo button - but the rear carries a healthy selection of ports, including an HDMI input and output, two USB3 ports, a digital optical output and Gigabit Ethernet. It also sports dual-band 802.11n WiFi, with a 5GHz option for optimal speed.
Read 10 things we learned about the Xbox One at E3 2013
We still don't know everything about what's inside the unit. We know it runs an 8-core AMD Jaguar x86 CPU, but not the exact specs or the clock speed. We know it runs an AMD 7000-series Radeon GPU, believed to be similar to the Radeon 7790 and running 768 shader units within 12 compute units, but full details and confirmation have yet to emerge.
Microsoft has stated that there's 8GB of DDR3 RAM installed, along with a 500GB hard disk, and we know that around 3GB of that RAM is used to handle the system's three operating systems - one to run games, one to run entertainment, comms and background tasks, and one to switch between them. All this leaves the Xbox One trailing Sony's PS4 in terms of specifications, but at this stage it's almost impossible to say what impact this might have in terms of in-game graphics or gameplay.
Read our Xbox One vs PS4 comparison to see how the two compare directly.
Xbox One - The User-Interface and Smartglass
The Xbox One has been designed from the ground-up to be controlled not just by a conventional joypad, but through voice and gesture commands with Kinect and through touch with a SmartGlass companion app. The overall UI will be familiar to anyone who has used Windows 8 or Windows 8 Phone, to the extent that you can pin and unpin games and services as you like on the homescreen, or run apps like Xbox Music or Skype in a reduced Windows Snap view while you do something else in the main view.
Microsoft's initial Xbox One reveal demonstrated many of the UI and media playback features, and we haven't personally seen them explored in much detail at E3. We have, however, seen Smartglass at work on the Xbox One, with Microsoft keen to demo new Smartglass 'experiences' that let you check your progress and achievements in the games you're playing, plus Smartglass remote control features for the Xbox One's TV functions, complete with an attractive and info-packed TV guide. How this will work with UK TV services remains to be seen.
There's also talk of using a Smartglass app on your tablet while on the move to purchase DLC content that downloads before you get home, and of other features - like friends' achievements and in-game videos, designed to engage you in the world of Xbox even when you're not playing on the console itself. Most of all, Smartglass will have a bigger role to play in actual games on Xbox One. If you're not using a Smartglass app to call in artillery fire on the zombies in Dead Rising 3, you're using it to sculpt the ground for your gameworld in Microsoft's new create and customise gaming title, Project Spark.
