Microsoft’s Don Mattrick is on stage right now in Redmond. He’s just unveiled the Xbox One, a big black slab of a console that’s very shiny and very square. It’s quite pretty, in a utilitarian kind of way.
There’s a new Kinect, too, redesigned to match the console. Voice control is in, they’re pushing a connection with your whole living room ecosystem and assuaging fears over the dashboard by plonking your latest activity squarely in the middle of a redesigned dashboard. It’ll link to US cable subscriptions like Comcast and switch between that and your games, music and other media on the fly, to saved states within each application.
The new controller, while not a huge early focus, looks like a fairly substantial redesign, with a new cross-shaped D-pad (thankfully) and a slightly more angular look.
Yusuf Mehdi took to the stage to show multi-tasking, with Internet Explorer running in “Snap Mode” alongside a movie trailer. Skype is present, as expected, with a very brief but suitably cheesy call-in conversation before leading into showing off fantasy sports teams alongside ESPN. All the TV stuff comes with a snazzy guide, too, although it’s unclear just now how any of this stuff will work outside of the US.
We’re still waiting to see some games but the system itself looks pretty slick so far. Stick with TSA for more news as it breaks and our usual convenient round ups after the show is over.
Some hardware specs have just been touted, too:
- Wireless 802.11n
- 8GB RAM
- 500GB hard disk
- 8 core processor
- Blu-ray
- 5 billion transistors (I’m not sure why that matters?)
- Xbox Live accounts will carry over, naturally
- 300,000 Xbox Live servers for Xbox One
- Kinect Camera is full colour, 30fps at 1080p
- Kinect has Time of Flight tech to make it ultra-responsive
pitbullmern
Is it me or hasn’t it got the wow factor that the ps4 reveal had ?
I brought the original xbox and 360 at launch but struggling to get excited by this. the name is terrible, it looks like one of the first dvd players released and most of the tv stuff wont be the same outside the us.
The games they have shown so far don’t look much better to me either.
DJ Judas
At the moment I’m not sure if it’s a games console or the latest Tivo box.
Not sold at this point but there’s great potential there, just need all those questions that are still swirling around to be answered.
hazelam
Halo tv series?
cool. ^_^
cam the man
I now that MS is an american company and north america there biggest market but if they want to sell more in Europe and around the rest of the world, why is the presentation so Americanised. Sony did a great job with it’s presentation to appeal to the western world.
pitbullmern
Halo tv series sounds cool. then they said premium tv series on xbox one. so paid for episodes then ?
hazelam
i’ll just wait for the Bluray version.
hazelam
goodie, more US only features. o_O
Winkle
I think for me personally Sony seem to be ticking all the boxes, Microsoft seem to be concentrating on the TV ( isnt it a games console? shouldnt you be showing games first and foremost?), of the little game footage shown all of it seems to be pre rendered no actual gameplay. The Xbox One name and the console itself are horrid.
pitbullmern
that reveal was completely aimed at North America. stuff the rest of the world.
pitbullmern
wow lean slide and wall leap in COD. so next gen
The Lone Steven
Of all the names to choose from, they chose Xbox 1. That is lazy. That said, the same could be said for the PS4. It seems to have the same specs as the PS4 so i suspect next generation will be a case of who has the better games instead of which platform runs it better.
Not surprised Kinect comes with the Xbox as they have been pushing it heavily since it’s launch. But i do hope they have updated it so that it does work irregardless of what your living room is like within reason. What is worrying though, is that they haven’t confirmed that it won’t use online DRM. :S
ron_mcphatty
One is an odd choice, it’s really not obvious why it’s been chosen. I’m baffled by the announcement, I think ill have to watch the conference in full tomorrow morning but from reading the TSA coverage I’m not impressed at all. I much preferred the arty farty Apple-esque PS4 gumph.