Xbox One, The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

The Good:
The ability to perform voice commands is by far the best feature on the Xbox one. When you walk into my room and say “Xbox on!” it turns itself on, and can turn the TV and Receiver on as well. Then the Kinect recognizes your face and signs you into your account.
When using the “Xbox select..” command, you can navigate the xbox menus without the use of the controller or hand gestures. When playing a game you have the ability to snap applications such as party chat with a simple voice command. With the same feature
you are able to add people to the party chat, remove them, and mute the chat, etc. As per the voice commands, if you swear at the ref in FIFA 14, you will be reprimanded by your club. Also keep your potty mouth to yourself when on the field, or the red cards
will come flying at you. NBA 2K14 has similar features, BF4 allows you to call in support with voice commands. As for the controller it is a slight improvement over the 360 controller. The analog sticks are comfortable and the redesign is most welcome. Bumpers
and triggers are solid, and over all the build quality of the controller is superb. The Operating System interface is really easy to navigate, the layout is basic and makes a lot of sense. It is very hard to get lost in the menus. When signing in to the console
by way of Kinect facial recognition it will recognize you in a completely dark room lit up only by the ambient light of the TV screen. The ventilation on the xbox this generation is a huge improvement over last, it runs really cool even when placed in an AV
cabinet with front doors. Overall The hardware doesn’t really heat up much. I guess Microsoft learned something from the previous generation. The application snap feature is handy, having two applications side by side really works on this console, and it doesn’t
distract or pull your attention from the gaming or watching a movie. This is especially useful when trying to start a Party Chat while in game. Xbox SmartGlass is a companion app for both the Xbox 360 and Xbox One. It is completely free and works on Windows,
iOS, and Android devices. You can use your smartphone or tablet to type in the text fields, when sending text based messages to your friends or entering your credit card information to make purchases. Most of us have smartphones and tablets so this naturally
makes sense. This app is also a companion to some games such as Dead Rising 3, it enables extra features and in game content. It’s an extension to the users video game experience and adds another level of interaction with the software, in some cases it is
easier to type with the smartphone than using the on screen keyboard. Something no one is talking about, perhaps because they don’t understand it, is the “server farm” Microsoft has stashed away for it’s developers. I’m not talking about the Xbox Live military
grade servers, I’m talking about the server that can offload some of the XBOs processing to the cloud. All of the rendering and computing does not need to be done locally anymore, and any non critical computing can be done on the servers and sent back to the
system. In my opinion this has a lot of potential, and the systems processing power is no longer limited to the local hardware specs.

The Bad:
The Xbox One is not DLNA certified, unlike it’s predecessor. This took me by surprise and is kind of anti next-gen for a device that wants to be the media centre hub of the living room and that calls itself next-gen. DLNA streaming is important to me, especially
for my music library. One of the crowning features of the 360 was the ability to listen to your music library while playing games. Also, at the moment the games are not there, Dead Rising 3 looks like a 360 game. Forza 5 is full of micro transactions, $59.99
for a game and micro transactions on top of that seems a little excessive. It will take the developers a longer time to get familiar with the XBO dev kits than the PS4 dev kits. The XBO has specialized hardware, like the Kinect, the ESRAM, and the render server
farm, whereas the PS4 is esentially an underpowered PC. Xbox 360 users and Xbox One users can not communicate properly over Xbox Live. If you’re on the Xbox One you can not receive voice messages as the XBO does not have this feature. Party Chat is not possible
with 360 and XBO users either. The camera is unable to identify my face sometimes and as such it does not sign me in automatically into the system. I particularly noticed this when reclining in a bean bag chair on the floor. Perhaps the Kinect has a hard time
recognizing the skeletal structure when in a reclined position. The lack of proper CEC integration is also surprising. The Xbox One uses an IR blaster to control the television and receiver, however this is not CEC as one can not use the receivers or televisions
remote to navigate the xbox menus.

The Ugly:
The gesture based navigation needs a lot of work. It is one of the worst features to use on the XBO. I’d say it works properly 50% of the time. The audio is another problem, it cuts out in certain menus and even though the XBO set to PCM 5.1, sometimes the
XBO decides to output DTS. Other times the XBO boost the volume by itself and then decides later that it is too loud and turns the volume down. There is no Bitstream option for the audio output either, and only Stereo, 5.1 PCM, 7.1 PCM, and DTS sound output
options are available.This does not work, I would like the option to have the receiver do the audio decoding, specifically DTS HD MA or Dolby TrueHD. My home cinema would appreciate that. No 3D Blu-ray support yet either, for a system that is trying to take
over the living room this is unacceptable. Despite the critics ramblings about 3D, it is here to stay, and consumers are slowly adopting said technology. There are other small glitches and hiccups when switching between menus and screens too. Sometimes the
xbox goes all Ghost in the Machine on me, and starts launching applications and navigating software on it’s own… Rise of the machines?

In conclusion..
…there is more good, than bad or ugly, however this next-gen console launch was very underwhelming. The underwhelming part is mostly due to the fact that both Microsoft and Sony released beta products into the wild. But if I were to decide between
the new Xbox or the new PlayStation, I’d pick the Xbox. Voice commands, gesture based browsing, a stunning 1080p camera, SmartGlass, server farm, skype and other app within app integration, superior controller, and system that shows promise providing the software
comes out of Beta soon. There are a lot of bugs in the software, and a lot of features that need tweaking and revision, this is true for both Sony and Microsoft alike. But if the 360 was an indication of how MS functions, is that they listen to their community,
and that their gaming system and it’s software will evolve over time.

:)

 

Xbox One it's triumphs and shortfalls.

Recently I put the Xbox One through it's paces, and here are the results of my labour.

Xbox One: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

 

Can anyone summarize the good and the bad of X1 E3?

The good-Sony. The bad-Nintendo. The ugly-Microsoft.

 

forums.xbox.com/.../3817.aspx

 

Whoa..hold up..did you just call the kinect "stunning?" lol I would have used another word..perhaps clunky..invasive..or downright creepy.Fixed that for you.

 

@ THEOWENKILLER not sure what you're linking to, but it doesn't open for me.

@LOWxONxHealth I was talking about the camera in the Kinect. I think in general the Xbox One is a big device but at least it runs cool.

 

I was linking the xbox one forum,a more suitable place for your thread.

 

If they would make it backwards compatible I'd buy one today.

 

backwards compatible yes is a definite must have.Then I will buy one until then it's my 360.

 

Does anyone know if Microsoft is going update the XboxOne with the ability to send/receive voice messages with other XboxOne users? Typing, even with a keyboard, takes longer than simply speaking into the Kinect or mic for a few seconds and is much more
convenient. Convenience is what the all-in-one Xbox system is all about anyway isn't it?

 

Thanks for the feedback. The lack of 3d is one of the main features that has prevented me from buying the X1. As soon as they implement 3d, I will get the X1 and at that point I can finally get rid of my PS3. Lack of BC is also disappointing but is fairly
common when the next console comes out. Hopefully by the time 3d is added, most of the other problems in your list will be resolved.

 

?1 in the uk where i live xbox one digital download games where put up in price by £5 uk pounds making game now £50 uk pounds i would like to see the games put back to the price they 1st where £44.99 uk pounds so im not looking cheaper games im looking the
game put back to RRP of £44.99 uk pounds.

?2 we need bigger hdd space as ive downloaded everything and im running out of hdd space

?3 we need sum way to pre order for xbox one digital download games for example i would like to pre order titanfall right of the dashboard say for like £5 uk pounds and no refunds on pre orders and i would like to see pre orders for elder scrolls online.

 

A person reviewing the Xbox One calling the Kinect "stunning"?

That is a first!

 

The Good - Nothing

The Bad - Everything

The Ugly - Well just look at it for crying out loud.

 

No backwards compatibility with Xbox 360, ok, I get that, but at least make some of your best-selling games like Halo and Fallout available in Xbox One. This has to be one of the poorest new system releases I have ever had the misfortune to be part of.
I mean really, 3 months until a new game release? The lack luster games that are available for such a new system, in my opinion, makes the Xbox One a very nice looking and EXPENSIVE paper weight. Microsoft should have had a stable of games ready for the
new release even if they were revamped titles, but again the need for profit overrode common sense. I would have had no problem going out and buying Xbox One versions of my favorite games.

I've had the system since December, but didn't get to use it until I returned from my deployment which was far too late to return the system for a refund. Well as they say live and learn, this won't be the first albatross I've been stuck with and it won't
be the last. At least I've still got my 360 for games and online activities like Crunchyroll. Maybe I can resell this thing on Amazon to some poor unsuspecting sot that wants the latest and greatest (yes, that is sarcasm) and recoup some of my money and
buy an updated 360 on which everything works and has games that I actually want to play. Frankly all I use the Xbox One for is watching video and Blu-ray and not much of that because of the limited number of available apps (Crunchyroll doesn't work on Xbox
One).

Had I known what I was getting I would never have spent the $500 and waited for something better or just upgraded my 360.

Again a very poorly thought out and executed roll out of what should be a premier gaming system!