14 DAY TRIAL // The Xbox One is the new home console created by technology powerhouse Microsoft, available on 13 core markets at the moment and coming to the rest of the world at some point early next year.
The price of the console is 499 dollars in North America and 499 Euro in Europe and gamers can get access to the device itself and the new, improved Kinect motion tracking system, which is central to the functionality of the device.
The new platform comes with three big exclusives: Dead Rising 3, Forza Motorsport 5 and Ryse: Son of Rome and a variety of other titles, including Call of Duty: Ghosts, FIFA 14 and more, are also available for it.
The biggest evolution in the philosophy behind the Xbox One is that Microsoft wants the device to be more than a gaming platform, aiming to establish it as the dominant device in the living room, designed to act as a portal to all entertainment experiences a user might need. Hardware
When initially taken out of the box, the Xbox One looks big and threatening, a black, solid device that seems little evolved when compared to the previous generation, a work horse that does not need aesthetic beauty to deliver performance.
The construction work looks solid and it’s really easy to find all the ports on the outer shell to quickly set up the console and power it up.
One SuperSpeed USB is on the left side of the console and easy to access, which means that gamers who want to plug in two controllers need to search for an extra slot at the back of the console.
There, they will also find a S/PDIF output for audio, an Ethernet port, the infrared blaster port and not one but two HDMI ports, one to deliver content to the television attached to the Xbox One and another designed to accept input from another device.
The controller of the new platform is harder to evaluate because it represents quite a departure from the one linked to the Xbox 360.
It feels heavier and more solid if a little bit smaller in the hand and the placement of the sticks and the buttons has been slightly changed in order to make it easier to use in the long term.
The d-pad and the face buttons are smooth, offer clear feedback when pressed and seem built to last.
The most controversial feature of the Xbox One controller is the redesign of the bumpers and the triggers, which now feature rumble, but also feel slippery and unreliable even if they are bigger than on the Xbox 360 controller.
As with all tech, a period of adjustment will be needed in order for players to feel entirely comfortable with the Xbox One controller and the changes it introduces. Software
Microsoft has talked a lot about the new user interface of the Xbox One and how easy it can be to integrate all the content that users care about into its panel design.
The style is clearly borrowed from the Windows 8 OS and wants players to organize their content into distinct piles and then use the controller and the Kinect motion tracking system to run them.
The home screen has a big tile that shows the most recently accessed piece of content and other slots under it showing the last four that were running before it.
To the left, the player profile and its associated Achievements are listed and to the right, the Snap feature appears and as the user scrolls, he can access the official store and a bigger list of all the other apps and content that he has pinned.
The new OS structure of the device means that players can Snap an app on top of another, for example organizing their Achievements or tweaking their profile while watching a movie or playing a game.
The involved programs are layered on top of each other and the feature can be used to manage video clips and quickly upload them without quitting the title in which they were created.
Kinect is pretty good when it comes to using voice commands to navigate the interface, but the device seems to miss some words if the player is on the move or not speaking clearly and there’s a very rigid list of commands that needs to be learned.
Everything is an app on the Xbox One and that means that a certain portion of its resources is kept separate in order to make sure they always run smoothly.
The big issue is that plenty of functionality, including sharing content, is only available to those who are willing to pay for the Xbox Live Gold service, which might create a segregated environment in the future and might decrease player interest in some of the most interesting features of the Xbox One.
The console also makes it harder than it should for gamers to invite friends to multiplayer events, but Microsoft is listening to feedback and says that it is working on a number of updates.
That said, the friends list has been significantly expanded and should accommodate even the most social of gamers and Microsoft has also added a new feature called followers, which makes it easy to keep up with updates from an even larger number of people. Conclusion
The Xbox One seems to be a solid, reliable piece of hardware with big aspirations, the type of console that can safely be the center point of Microsoft’s long-term strategy when it comes to home entertainment.
A high point of using the device is the Kinect and how easy it can make navigation when it works as it's supposed to. Another highlight is the easy way that Snap allows players to use two very different apps at the same time.
The problem that the device has right now is that the exclusive titles I have played, including Forza Motorsport 5, Dead Rising 3 and Ryse: Son of Rome, do not feel like they take advantage of the power of the Xbox One.
They each highlight one aspect of the new console, but it seems that we might have to wait for the new Titanfall, coming from Respawn Entertainment in early 2014, to see a title that uses all the features of the platform in interesting ways.
It will also be interesting to see how the new device manages to deliver on its promise of unified entertainment in the long term, with Quantum Break and Halo 5 representing the early test cases for Microsoft’s promises.
