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
yogh_wayne
“Xbox One” for the third console?! Now that won’t be confusing at all…
BTW what does Time of Flight tech mean in this context? I only know the term from mass spectrometry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-of-flight_mass_spectrometry), but I somehow doubt Microsoft built a miniature mass spectrometer into every Kinect unit :P
hazelam
they just measure how long it takes the light to leave the Kinect unit, bounce off an object in front of it and return.
has to be very, VERY precise given how fast light moves.
Peter Chapman
it’s just their name for “really fast sensors in the camera, guys” I think.
hazelam
so it seems it’s, nearly, over.
finally, i know what to call the thing.
the Halo tv series is exciting.
far too much tv stuff, that likely won’t make it outside the US.
ea sports games, meh.
Forza, looks good, but then it’s easy to make cars look good.
the Remedy title looks the most interesting.
oh and now COD.
you can have a dog on the team, but not a woman apparently. >_<
and customise everything, except gender, it seems. O_O
i don't know why, but the shot of the dog in the mocap suit made me laugh. ^_^
hazelam
can we start speculating on what the fourth gen xbox will be called now? ^_^
Awayze
Where’s the picture of the One?
hol
Not much imagination has gone into the design of the box has it? Shockingly awful, but the UI looks like it’s made for 5 years olds? I’m sure it’ll sell well in the USA but not sure about the rest of the world?
Forza just looked like a poor copy of Drive Club to me.
stage1
RIP Microsoft.
hazelam
ms will survive, the xbox faces a tough road though.
Tuffcub
https://twitter.com/Tuffcub/status/336925431607459841/photo/1
skibadee
that was just awful compared to the PS4 reveal.
MICKY17
Box looks horrible and not sure about the name. Remedy title looked interesting but I agree with others about too much TV stuff shown. Until we find out what the plans for EU are then I’m sticking in the Sony camp for now.
Paranoimia
The name. That’s an odd one. No pun intended.
I remember reading that they went with “Xbox 360” because they felt “Xbox 2” might sound to the average person as though it was ‘behind’ PlayStation 3 – yet now they call this the Xbox One?
And what’s with that 80s Betamax VCR styling?