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Xbox One: Microsoft's All-In-One Home Entertainment System

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21–30 of 165 posts

Re: Xbox One: Microsoft's All-In-One Home Entertainment System

#21
So this is a Windows-lite PC, cable box, Xbox video game system? It has hdmi in right?

I'm officially old because I do not find this interesting at all. My son will want it, so we will have it, but as a person who buys a lot of tech, I am not seeing the appeal.

I think it is the all-in-one, do-everything approach it Microsoft is taking with this that disinterests me. Why does every company want to be your everything now a days?

Re: Xbox One: Microsoft's All-In-One Home Entertainment System

#22
post #15

Most people I know who own a PS3 consider it essentially a blu-ray player. Most people I know who own an Xbox consider it essentially a Netflix player. These people bought games, but they don't really play them. I've got naught but my anecdata, but I think attempting to bill this new console as an entertainment system that happens to also play some great games is a very, very good idea.

I agree as long as it doesn't sound like a jet taking off in my living room. I gave up on using the 360 as a NF player because it was simply too LOUD. The ATV I have streams NF fine and is silent.

First-gen 360 or the Xbox 360S? The first-gen made my apartment sound like a damn international airport, but the second-gen, while not whisper silent, is pretty quiet.

Re: Xbox One: Microsoft's All-In-One Home Entertainment System

#24
post #6

I guess people still care about t.v.

There's a world outside the US. E.g. in most of Europe there are virtually no Netflix or Hulu-like services. Nearly everyone uses a Cable or DVB-T service.

A bit painful, considering that my ISP just announced to upgrade my connection from 120/10 MBit/s to 150/15. The bandwidth is there, but I guess it's hard to make licensing arrangements.

Re: Xbox One: Microsoft's All-In-One Home Entertainment System

#25

Most people I know who own a PS3 consider it essentially a blu-ray player. Most people I know who own an Xbox consider it essentially a Netflix player. These people bought games, but they don't really play them. I've got naught but my anecdata, but I think attempting to bill this new console as an entertainment system that happens to also play some great games is a very, very good idea.

Since the Xbox One has Blu-Ray, it'll be the best of both worlds! :)

PS3 has had Netflix for a long time as well.

Re: Xbox One: Microsoft's All-In-One Home Entertainment System

#26

So this is a Windows-lite PC, cable box, Xbox video game system? It has hdmi in right? I'm officially old because I do not find this interesting at all. My son will want it, so we will have it, but as a person who buys a lot of tech, I am not seeing the appeal. I think it is the all-in-one, do-everything approach it Microsoft is taking with this that disinterests me. Why does every company want to be your everything…

Normally I'm against do-everything devices, but IMO this is a stroke of genius.

Everything about operating a TV today is pure pain. The centerpiece here is an obtuse, 100-button remote that no one fully knows how to use. You use this remote to get at the "mode switcher", which changes you from TV watching mode, to bluray watching mode, to gaming mode, to whatever else you do with your TV.

It's painful, not to mention a lot of people have receivers to handle the audio portion of this. It's like a really, really bad KVM.

The only way to eliminate that pain was to take over all of the above responsibilities, and MS just did that. With any luck this means you will basically never have to touch your TV's god-awful remote ever again, and the terms "Video 1", "Video 2", and "TV" will cease to have any meaning.

Re: Xbox One: Microsoft's All-In-One Home Entertainment System

#27
post #6

I guess people still care about t.v.

There's a world outside the US. E.g. in most of Europe there are virtually no Netflix or Hulu-like services. Nearly everyone uses a Cable or DVB-T service. A bit painful, considering that my ISP just announced to upgrade my connection from 120/10 MBit/s to 150/15. The bandwidth is there, but I guess it's hard to make licensing arrangements.

Even in the US, even in areas with good enough broadband to stream all your content, people still care about broadcast television because of sports. MS's focus here with ESPN and the NFL is bang-on.

Re: Xbox One: Microsoft's All-In-One Home Entertainment System

#28
It is definitely telling that it took them 30 minutes into a 60 minute presentation to talk about games, then another 10 to talk about a non-sports game. Yes, they're saying they're going to talk more about games at E3, but a reveal is a "put your best foot forward" type of event, and Microsoft seems to be going for a "games are an afterthought" type of approach.

Compared to the PS4's continuation of Sony's "games first" philosophy and Nintendo's "we're sorry core gamers!" philosophy with the Wii U (that's not working out so hot right now, given how lukewarm core game developers are to it), it may be a risk that pans out for Microsoft, but it's a bit unfortunate: gaming—and not just sports gaming—has made gains into mainstream culture over the past decade, and it doesn't seem like it really needed to be brushed aside in order to "win" this generation's console war.

Re: Xbox One: Microsoft's All-In-One Home Entertainment System

#29
post #17
post #9

I'd like to be impressed, but it's really hard. I have friends that work at Microsoft and have worked on various bits of this platform. I know personally the incredible amount of hard work that gets put into this product. This presentation just feels... empty. It's largely middle-aged men (and a woman who worked at tv companies) dryly reciting a badly written script with significant intentional pauses intended for ap…

Everything was stable, I streamed the entire event from Verge pre-show to the end screen without a single hiccup or drop. I also had far less criticism than you did for the presentation, I found it similar to what Sony and Nintendo do on stage and definitely par the course for a console release. I mean, think about it: Sony hasn't even shown off it's hardware yet, and they announced months ago . Now Sony is telling u…

Yeah I can't criticize too much on streaming, other than that it worked fine until half way through and then wouldn't reconnect after that. There's a lot of factors that can affect that. Considering it happened from both my phone over LTE and laptop via wifi at home, 2 data points can triangulate in a certain direction.

Your bar is too low. Expect more from product releases. Was this launch better than the PS4 launch? Absolutely. Was it great, not at all.

I will never introduce a product that doesn't do what its being sold to do until I can stand in front of 100 people and show it working.

Re: Xbox One: Microsoft's All-In-One Home Entertainment System

#30

As someone actually interested in playing games (and I know that may make me a minority here), this was the best commercial there will likely ever be for the Sony PlayStation 4.

Personally, as a gamer, the native replay system is the most exciting thing I've seen out of this generation. So many times I've been playing a game with my brother over Xbox Live and something awesome happens, and afterwards we're kind of like, "Man, I wish this game had a record button like Halo so we could watch that over and over again." And now they all will.
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