Xbox One arrives in late 2013 with Kinect, more powerful Xbox Live

Written by Brandon Hofer on May 22, 2013

Xbox One News: Xbox One was unveiled to the world today along with Call of Duty: Ghosts and other partnerships.

Xbox One is what you will be calling the next generation of Xbox, according to Microsoft. Shown off earlier today at the Xbox Reveal, Xbox One was shown off to the public for the very first time. We were able to see the new controller, Kinect camera and the console itself. The design of Xbox One seemed to be very sleek and it has a disc slot to put your games in instead of the disk drive that the Xbox 360 features. While developing Xbox One Microsoft said they were going for “simple, instant and complete”. They wanted to create experiences that look and feel like nothing else by releasing a console for the new generation with features such as live tv.

According to Microsoft, Xbox One will respond instantly and will be cloud powered. It should be noted that Microsoft did not address whether this console is “online only” or not. Things like your game saves will be saved in the cloud similar to Xbox 360 but Microsoft did not definitively state whether or not Xbox One required an always online connection. One of the interesting new features of Xbox One seemed to be that it will remember what you were last doing. If you were playing a game the last time you used Xbox One or you watched a movie, the console will remember it. What this means is that, supposedly, if you were watching Inception the last time you used Xbox One, then it would be front and center for you the next time you would turn on the system. You wouldn’t have to search through your list of movies or tv shows because it would be right there for you. Going along with that is the XBox Guide which is similar to what you have today for seeing what is on tv. It will show you what is currently on tv in addition to having different categories such as “Favorites” or “Trending”. If your favorite show is on CBS then all you have to do is say “Watch Survivor” or “Watch CBS”.

Microsoft also revealed that Xbox LIve will be a lot more powerful in Xbox One. During the presentation they stated that Xbox Live on the 360 has 15,000 servers while Xbox Live on Xbox One will feature 300,000 servers. There will be a dedicated game DVR as well as native editing and sharing tools so you can show off your gameplay skills. They said your achievements will become “dynamic and changing” so that it tells “the story of how you play, not just what you have done.” Xbox Live on Xbox One will have asyncronous capability which will allow Xbox Live to search for your perfect match in a game of FIFA 14 while you are playing Madden NFL 25. According to Microsoft this means there will be bigger matches with more players.

The Xbox One interface seems to be similar to the current one that we have right now for Xbox 360 but with a few changes. For starters there is a new “Trending” category that will allow you to see what is popular not only with the Xbox community itself, but also your friends. There was no mention about whether the friends list will be expanded past 100 friends but hopefully that tidbit of information is released in a few weeks at E3.

The second generation of Kinect will be packaged in with every Xbox One console and it appears to be far more powerful than its predecessor. For starters, the new Kinect will feature a 1080p camera which blows away the Xbox 360 version of Kinect. The camera will be wide view to try and get in as much datas as possible and it will process 2 gigabits of data every second, making the new Kinect far more powerful than its sibling on the Xbox 360. Xbox One seems like it will also respond at a moments notice, even if it is turned off. By simply saying “Xbox On” the system will turn on take you to the home screen that shows your personalized content. Xbox One will also allow you to watch live tv by simply saying “Xbox Watch TV” or “Go to TV”. There are also other commands such as “Xbox Game” to immediately switch to the game you are playing. During the demonstration all of this would happen instantaneously. Only time will tell if Xbox One will respond that quickly once you have it in your living room but it did look pretty promising during the demonstration. Of course I’m sure all of this will be able to be done with a controller as well.

As far as the Xbox One architecture itself it will have the following features:

5 billion transistors

8 gigs of ram

USB 3.0

Wi-fi Direct

Blu-ray

64-bit architecture

invariable power states

3 operating systems in one - Xbox operating system, Windows kernel and a combination of the two that enables multitasking.

One of the first things Microsoft did was show off the Xbox One itself and that includes the controller. At a quick glance the form factor of the controller appears to be largely unchanged although there things you will notice. Even though they weren’t mentioned during the presentation, the controller did seem to have a couple of new buttons by what I assume is the XBox Guide button. The analog sticks are still offset and it would appear that they have fixed the d-pad. I haven’t had a chance to hold the controller in my hand but just by looking at the pictures it seems the d-pad problem the 360 had is fixed with it being set more in the controller and not on a ball like in the 360 controller. During the presentation Microsoft stated that the Xbox One controller has 40 new design innovations, including impulse triggers, Wi-Fi direct radio stacks, an integrated battery compartment and that d-pad that I just mentioned.

Alongside the hardware announcements some content was announced as well. They revealed that there is going to be a live action Halo television series with Steven Spielberg behind it. They said it was going to be a “premium television series” which leads me to believe you will need to be an XBox Live Gold member to see it but, of course, that is only speculation on my part. EA was in the house and revealed that over the course of the next twelve months they will be releasing FIFA 14, Madden NFL 25, NBA Live 14 and a UFC title on Xbox One. In addition, the XBox One version of FIFA 14 will have an exclusive mode but that is all they said. During the event EA showed off their new “Infinity Engine” which will have 10 times more animation depth and detail and, on Xbox Live, will feature a daily stream of new content that impacts the game(s) you play.

During the presentation, Microsoft revealed 15 exclusive games for the Xbox One with 8 of them being brand new franchises. Unfortunately no details were given about these titles. Other titles that were shown off at the event include Forza Motorsport 5, Quantum Break and Call of Duty: Ghosts on Xbox One. A trailer for Forza Motorsport 5 was shown to show off how powerful XBox One is and they announced it would be a launch title. Quantum Break is Remedy’s next tile for XBox One and seems to be an action title but it is hard to say after viewing a brief teaser trailer that I am assuming will be expanded upon at E3. On a personal note it is a little disappointing it wasn’t Alan Wake 2 but Quantum Break seems like it could be interesting. Call of Duty: Ghosts was shown off at the event as well and it looked pretty impressive on Xbox One. Call of Duty: Ghosts is running on an entirely new next gen engine and, in this game, you are the underdog. They did a comparison video showing off Call of Duty: Ghosts to Infinity Ward’s last title Modern Warfare 3 and there was quite a big difference between the two engines and, of course, the two consoles themselves. While at the event Infinity Ward did tease that they were changing up multiplayer with dynamic multiplayer maps and character customization. I don’t quite know what this means but I am sure we will find out more at E3. It was also revealed that Microsoft has extended their agreement with Activision where Call of Duty downloadable content will, once again, be released first exclusively on XBox Live for Xbox One. I think one can safely assume that means that Call of Duty DLC will arrive on XBox One a month before the other platforms similar to how it was with the Xbox 360 but, again, that is merely speculation on my part.

In addition to those games, Microsoft announced some new details about partnerships. Their partnership with ESPN seems to be growing with the inclusion of fantasy leagues. With Xbox One, you can now say “Xbox Show Fantasy” and your fantasy players will pop up on the screen for that NBA game you are watching. There will be real time tracking of your fantasy players so you know where you are against your friends and who is currently winning. In addition, Microsoft revealed an exclusive partnership with the NFL where XBox One will have “exclusive and interactive content”. Fantasy football will play a large part here but there are also some other things that will be possible. Unfortunately we don’t really know what they are as Microsoft was being very vague in their statements but, supposedly, this means that Microsoft technology will be “on the sidelines” and it will “change the game” for coaches and players. Whether this is just marketing speak or something actually comes out of it remains to be seen.

After the presentation was over some other details started to come out. Xbox Live Vice President Marc Whitten stated that Xbox One will not be backwards compatible with Xbox 360. This is unfortunate for those people who don’t have the physical space to house multiple consoles alongside their tv, cable box and whatever else is there. Apparently it also appears that Xbox Live Arcade games will not transfer either. I complained about this at the PS4 event when they revealed the lack of backwards compatibility in the PS4 (although they “hope” to stream backwards compatibility at some point) and I’ll throw those same complaints in Microsoft’s direction. As much as flak as Nintendo receives, it seems they are the only ones who are consumer friendly in this area. The silver lining here though is that your gamertag and achievements will indeed transfer over to Xbox One so you won’t lose any of your progress in that area when you make the transition.

Well there you have it. Microsoft unveiled Xbox One to the world today and will continue in a little under three weeks at E3. At the end of the PS4 show I thought the PS4 had a lot of potential and I feel the same way about Xbox One. There are a lot of things here that have a lot of potential. Will that potential be realized though? What will end up happening vs. what we were told would happen today? The next few months will be very interesting as Microsoft and Sony vie for mind share and market position as they release their respective consoles. No release date was given other than “later this year.” Will you pick up an Xbox One? Will you pick up a PS4? What did you think of today’s presentation? What do you hope to see at E3?