It's not uncommon to have a specialized device for everything you want to do with your entertainment system. Microsoft's Xbox One tries to take all of them, crammed into...one...box, and unify the experience. Whoa.
Consequently, this is a difficult piece of technology to review. It does so many things. It's not until you use it, or at least see it in action, that you can decide if the platform is transformative to the way you spent time relaxing on the couch, dancing, singing, or talking to friends overseas. I'm including Microsoft's own video as the best representation of the Xbox's many applications.
In a way, the Xbox One introduces multitasking to your living room. Where before you switched between inputs on the TV to flip between games, live programming, your Blu-ray player, or even an HTPC, this device puts all of that under one input that responds to your voice, your face, and the now-old-fashioned controller.
It's a convergence of living room entertainment with an interface that's much like Microsoft's Windows 8 UI. Unlike the controversial operating system, however, the Xbox's tile-based interface feels as natural on your TV as it does on Windows Phone. There's also Bing and Internet Explorer, which don't play a major role, but do what we expect of them. SkyDrive might enjoy its highest utilization as it becomes the default repository for recorded media on the console. I still don't use SkyDrive on the desktop, nor do I want my personal documents and pictures living in Microsoft's cloud. But for 30 second of game footage at a time? Sure.
Taking all of the above into consideration, it's actually harder to compare the Xbox One to Sony's PlayStation 4 than most gamers would have you believe. Neither console can be distilled down into its shader cores or memory bandwidth. If you're looking for a dedicated gaming machine, the PlayStation does have a big advantage in its specifications and $400 price tag. But the extra $100 for Microsoft's Xbox One buys you more than just the Kinect camera. It also comes with Microsoft's promise to reinvent the way you enjoy content on your TV, and that's a very compelling pitch.
- Xbox One: The Exterior Design
- Power, Internal Storage, And Game Installations
- The Xbox One CPU: Complements Of AMD's Jaguar µArch
- The Xbox One GPU: GCN-Based
- The Xbox One's Controller: Vastly Improved
- A New Kinect Camera: The Xbox One's Other Controller
- Kinect, Your Privacy, And The Future
- Watching TV Through The Xbox One
- More Software: Snap, IE, Bing, And Smartglass
- Is The Xbox One Convergence Done Right?


At the time being,IMO PS4 is a better gaming machine;whereas,X1 is a better entertainment system.
PS4 has a more powerful GPU so it should perform better in games and is $100 cheaper too;whereas,X1 tries to do more than just gaming and costs more.
For me,PS4 is a better machine because I only tend to play games on a console but X1 is also a great machine
some of the ps4 reviews i read had info on gaming as well as media/entertainment. i mean info like how the games look and feel to a player, resolution and user perception, joystick (and other input devices) performance in gaming etc.
I'm pretty sure MS went over the usage stats of the 360 and found that more and more people were using the media/TV/movie aspects. After all thats where the money is.
MS could sell half as many Xbox Ones as Sony but it will still be making far more per console in subscriptions and services. The money going forward isn't in games.
However, I don't think this generation will be as long lived as the 360/PS4. I see One.5 or PS4.5 models or total replacement within 5 years.
I might be getting both, but to be honest I might not get any, as I've become more of a PC gamer
One day Tom's will move into the 21st century. Apologies folks.
It is not a bad thing when done right, yes, but then you'll have a "jack of all trades" instead of a "gaming machine". I'm not an advocate of putting too many specific functions into one device until the technology is up to par with the individual ones. Smartphone cameras is a fine example for that: today we find "good" picture quality compared to a Point and Shoot and it will get even better down the road thanks to tech advancements. In the case of consoles, I expect SteamBox to trash everything else in the living room gaming wise first and other-stuff second, including the recent-out consoles. There's a world of horsepower of difference between the custom APUs and using an Intel + nVidia/AMD video card with an optimized OS (SteamOS, remember?).
I'll need a first hand experience with the XB1 and the PS4, but as "consoles", they must not disappoint. Kinnect is a feature you should/can put in a PC/HTPC with little effort if you want one (we're in a tech site, so this phrase is valid). Same for the EyeToy. Hell, even speech recognition used in the XB1, I'm sure is a derivative from the one in Windows that anyone can actually tune and use.
Cheers!
At the time being,IMO PS4 is a better gaming machine;whereas,X1 is a better entertainment system.
PS4 has a more powerful GPU so it should perform better in games and is $100 cheaper too;whereas,X1 tries to do more than just gaming and costs more.
For me,PS4 is a better machine because I only tend to play games on a console but X1 is also a great machine
We'll have more stories on both consoles.
some of the ps4 reviews i read had info on gaming as well as media/entertainment. i mean info like how the games look and feel to a player, resolution and user perception, joystick (and other input devices) performance in gaming etc.
The problem is a lot of the functionality is limited until the day one update, which the press samples did not have yet. We will have follow ups in the coming weeks. I'll be out camping for mine Thursday night
*Edit I hope this doesn't double post -_-
The Xbox One may be an astounding piece of technology but it looks fat and ugly.