Microsoft laid down a similar number of cards to those laid out by Sony with their PS4 reveal earlier this February, but whose cards are better? Honestly, from what has been shown at this point Sony has the more gamer- and game-centric console with specs more likely to result in games of a graphic fidelity completely unachievable on current gen consoles. With that said, here’s the news that was released today along with an image gallery of the highest resolution images of the Xbox One that we could get a hold of (remember to right-click the images and choose “Open Link in New Tab” to see the images at their maximal resolution):
- A new upgraded version of the Kinect sensor is included with every Xbox One and required for its operation. Various details about it have been revealed including: 1080p camera with a 60 degree wider field of view, enhanced voice recognition with more conversational commands, three times as sensitive depth sensing capabilities able to pick out wrinkles in clothing and limb rotation, body tracking that can sense weight distribution, IR sensing so that ambient light (or lack thereof) doesn’t affect sensing, the ability to tell when the player is “engaged” switching off voice recognition when you’re looking away or talking to someone else, and a heart monitor that uses the visual sensors to estimate the player’s heartbeat. Being able to turn the Xbox One on by saying “Xbox On” means that it’s always listening even when the system is in standby, though, so that is a feature that paranoid people should hope has a disabling option.
- Live TV integration is deeply woven into the Xbox One architecture, which is good news if you’re stuck in the middle ages with a cable box and want to pay extra monthly to have some form of voice control for it.
- Voice commands and Kinect gestures can be used to switch instantly between movies, TV, music, and games. There is also a “Snap Mode” picture-in-picture feature that can open up apps like a web browser in a sidebar beside whatever content you’re currently viewing/playing.
- Xbox One is not backwards compatible with Xbox 360 games/apps (or avatars), but will be able to transfer your GamerScore and Achievements
- Xbox One’s Achievement system is getting an overhaul too, with the ability to grow achievements over time and across multiple games/apps, the capability of developers to constantly update a game’s achievement list, and the ability to record the moments leading up to gaining achievements.
- On the very dim bright side, the Xbox One’s controller has received the TLC that the rest of the console seems to be greatly lacking featuring: greatly enhanced ergonomics fitting into the hand better than ever, control sticks that have been shrunken slightly, given a woven texture along the edges, made 25% easier to move, and have a much smaller dead zone, “impulse triggers” that rumble separately from the rest of the controller and feature magnet drivers that give them twice as many levels of depression, a more functional clicky in-set non-disc d-pad, more sensitive ABXY buttons shaped to depress more quickly and placed closer together, an integrated (doesn’t stick out) battery compartment that can still optionally use double-As, a glowing Xbox button that has been moved farther up on the controller to avoid accidental presses, and “View”/”Menu” buttons that replace the Back/Forward buttons respectively.
- The Xbox One’s hardware specs include 8GB of DDR3 RAM (generally slower than the unified GDDR5 in the PS4), an 8-Core Custom (non-X86) CPU, a 500GB hard drive, a Blu-ray drive, HDMI in and out ports, USB 3.0, and 802.11n wireless Internet capabilities.
- The Xbox One features three concurrent operating systems that work together (and probably use up a good amount of the 8GB of RAM): the Xbox OS, a Windows 8 shell for things like app switching and concurrent running, and a third that handles communications between the two.
- To play a retail game in an Xbox One you have to insert the disc and enter what is essentially a CD-key which will allow you to install the game onto the hard drive and license it to your Xbox Live account. With your account you can play the game on any Xbox One, and other users on the original system will be able to use it without hassle, but if you lend the game disc to a friend or sell it to someone they will have to pay full retail price for an activation code to play the game regardless of having the disc. Microsoft is also apparently working on a digital way to trade or resell previously played games, but they refused to go into any great detail in that regard.
- Furthermore, beyond how an active Internet connection is required to validate the original CD-key, the Xbox One will also purportedly have to be connected to the Internet at least once every 24 hours to continue to function.
- A new Xbox One game from Alan Wake’s Remedy Entertainment was announced called Quantum Break; its teaser featured live action actors and some purportedly in-engine footage of a ship running into a bridge. Time manipulation will apparently be a big component of the gameplay.
- Call of Duty: Ghosts footage was shown and it doesn’t look terribly next-gen, footage could easily have been running on the Xbox 360 or a mid-level gaming PC. CoD: Ghosts‘ single-player campaign is, however, written by Stephen Gaghan who is known for the movies Syriana and Traffic. There will also be a dog on your squad in the campaign.
Other info from briefing:
- Steven Spielberg is directing a live-action Halo TV Series that may be called “Wake Up John”, or that could be its tagline.
- EA showed embarrassing wireframe footage from some upcoming sports games.
Not a great showing overall. At the very least PC gamers will have a nice new controller to use when the Xbox One launches worldwide this year (probably in November). Here are the lovely high resolution pictures I promised:
