So I, with half the internet, watched this afternoon’s Microsoft Xbox ONEne Reveal. (Is it “ONE” or “One”?). Here are a few thoughts that I think pretty much sums up a lot of the feeling I got watching Twitter and chatting with fellow blogger James during the event.
- Games: Where were they? This whole EA partnership makes me feel icky and the lack of NCAA among the four “Pillars” of games was disappointing. I would bet real American Dollars that NCAA games sell better than both UFC games and NBA games (but of course couldn’t touch FIFA or Madden). I could take or leave Call of Duty: Ghosts. The feed I was watching wasn’t in HD, so I didn’t get the full effect of the compare and contrast to MW3 and MW:G, so maybe that could have made an impact, but EA and COD did not get me excited about playing games on the Xbox One.
I will play games on this machine, right?
- Details: Sure, they had a few technical details (processor speed, RAM) but what about the harddrive? The optical drive? I know it has been reported elsewhere that the new Xbox would have a Bluray drive, but I would really like to have that confirmed.
- That controller: It’s a thing of beauty.
- The other stuff: The TV/Cable/DVR integration is really, really slick. I know a lot of people poo-poohed it, but I think that if it seamlessly, it’s going to be awesome.
- The Kinect 2: The new Kinect has promise. Clearly there is potential there. If nothing else, telling the Xbox to turn on and it recognizes me and logs me in, that is pretty slick.
So, am I getting one? Probably. Most likely. For a host of reasons (brand loyalty, the Halos, the achievements). But is it possible I’ll opt for the Playstation 4 this generation? It’s a possibility. A slim one, but a possibility nonetheless.
Will you be getting one?
I will not be getting the XBONE at release.
What about the PS4? Do you think that’s a launch-day purchase for you?
It might be, but we’re in the same boat with the PS4. I have almost 150 digital game son the PS3. They won’t transfer over to PS4.
Why get it at release and lose all that so I could play 1-2 games? I don’t mind if disc-based games where not BC. But the digital?
How would you feel, if you got a Steam update and Valve said all your games no longer worked?
It’s just stupid on the part of Microsoft and Sony. But, hey, people don’t cry about it enough so they get away with it. Also, it allows them to charge us again when they do update it.
I told my two boys about the XBONE and they asked if it played Minecraft. I said no. They replied they didn’t want it.
I’m already sure of one thing — whenever I do get the new Xbox my old Xbox 360 will still get plenty of use — for the very reasons you mentioned. The kids still love Minecraft and having another Netflix machine and old arcade games machine will still be in high demand.
It’s hard to judge MS’s intentions with the muddled messages going around, but it feels to me like they are really pushing the idea of the Xbox as HTPC. My cynical/jaded side says that this is an executive response to the games platform being seen as a higher profit center than the aging Windows/Office business. And the best way to make a successful line fail is to get executives involved 😛
At any rate, either MS is genius for nailing down what a new generation of gamers want, or they’re insane for trying to push a HTPC on a current audience that wants a console to play games above and beyond any other considerations.
I’m in the second camp. I could care less about Skype integration or how it’ll make my TV viewing better (I don’t watch TV, for one). I DO care that they are devoting an OS and ~3GB of RAM (not to mention whatever UI space and CPU time) to a bunch of non-game material that I won’t use.
So, will I get an Xbox One? Probably not, unless it has some amazing exclusive games. As always, I buy a console if it has games I want. I don’t buy a console for it’s Share button or TV listing controls and then look for what games I can get on it.
That’s a really good point, Silvanis. The 360 felt like it had gamers in mind (and in 2005, the majority of “gamers” are what we also would have called “hard core gamers”) and the Xbox One feels very corporate. I don’t like that.
As a set top box with all these features? It’s super slick. Sykpe on the big TV has potential to be really cool (think grandparents chatting full screen with grandkids) but again: is this a game console or not?
Right now, it sure is looking like “not”.