The Xbox One interface is to be streamlined following yesterday’s announcement of a Kinect free Xbox One.
“You can expect to see us do a bunch of things over the coming months to make the experience easier and easier, even if you don’t have a Kinect,” explained Microsoft’s Yusuf Mehdi. However, the changes will not arrive until after E3 when the Kinect free console is released. “We’re still kind of working through that,” he added.
He then went on to deny that Kinect localisation and the upcoming Chinese launch was the reason the device was dropped, and neither was the price.
“For us, it has not really been about that,” he told Engadget before explaining that Xbox feel that they have completed their goal of “defining a next-generation console.”
One possible bonus of removing Kinect is that it could free up around 10% of the consoles processing power which is currently reserved for the device.
“We are in discussions with our game publishers about what we might do in this space and we will have more to talk about soon, “said Mehdi.
With almost every multiplatform game performing at a lower resolution on Xbox One Microsoft are in desperate need of some extra power. If they did let developers use the extra power in their games then I would expect the already deflated support for Kinect would vanish overnight.
As for those of you who already have a console with Kinect, don’t expect any nice bonuses from Microsoft for being an early adopter.
“As with many first generation products, the offerings can be expected to change and evolve over time. Kinect remains an integral part of our vision,” Microsoft told Eurogamer. “Xbox One is better with Kinect, making games, TV and entertainments come alive with premium experiences.”
djdustb
They may have lost the launch battle but they are certainly listening to what is needed and wanted. Come on Sony catch up!
Eldaveo
Lol, it is crazy how many things Phil Spencer has changed since taking over. Its like he’s taken the original X1 plan and wiped his backside with it.
He’s only been in charge for a few weeks and has already done a great job at bringing the X1 more in-line with the PS4 – something I doubt a lot of the corporate suits in charge last year would have done.
As an owner of both consoles, I’m excited to see how things progress :)
whoelse
As long as he doesn’t bring Xbox’s version of Home, with an achievements cabinet!
ABlokeCalledDaz
When you say ‘Sony catch up!’ what do you mean, I would have thought they are in a pretty comfortable position already. Not trying to troll you just after some opinions.
djdustb
Sorry I was fairly vague and catch up is not really the right term.
I love my PS4 and it is a great piece of kit but there is so much missing from the OS even just basics that you would expect to see from day one that have either been overlooked or just ignored. They really need to listen to the gripes and suggestions of users to patch the missing features and add what is missing, a few months ago we were all saying how good it was they listened. yes they listened but still no action (as I think I pointed out at the time).
2ofclubs
I presume your (djdustb) list of wanted features will be MP3 and video playback (stored on device), DLNA, folder sorting, YouTube app and friend notifications? If so I’m pretty sure those are coming. However short of the friends notifications the rest wouldn’t class as basic for a games focussed console. In your mind perhaps but that’s just because the PS3 has them. To the average buyer I’d imagine these aren’t huge emmisions hence why they aren’t fixed yet. I do agree with you by the way, just expressing why in business terms they’ve yet to add them.
Kennykazey
I just want my PS4 to be able to read and write to an external drive like on the PS3. It’s great for copying and playing music, images, video and moving save-files. Oh, and 3D bluray playback ASAP.
djdustb
Two of clubs, those features would be nice but they are not high on my list of basic features that should be there.
The new interface is great in man ways but in others it is a mess, I cannot sort trophies as I used to on e the old system, they recently fixed a sort issue but not so you can organise by various sensible options or a search within them, comparing trophies is clunky, why can I not hide some of them (I open a game and it is crap so I stop playing but still 0% trophies show up).
The main bar to show my games show let me hide games from this, my GF and I share the PS4 and have our own profiles she plays games I do not, but they show in my list and when updated they show at the front of my list, let me hide them by user. The library tab is a waste of space if everything is shown on the main screen anyway, AND when I open this tab I can still see items in the library that I have removed from the system. This is handy to get them back but why can I not filter this list to show only what I have installed?
There are more but these are a few basics they need to get right. SharePoint is not a priority, getting the share function working 100% of the time is.
stueeeee
Yes as much as I love how ps4 has been promoted by sony this time, to be honest as a ps3 owner, if/when I buy the ps4 I would expect it to do at the minimum, the basic functions of the ps3.
I heavily use the media features. Constantly putting pics and vids on there and playing my music as well as games. I would also assume after reading here it doesn’t, is that it would play 3D blu rays! Love the 3D films and games!
I hope they work on their promises to patch it all in.
TSBonyman
I agree, Sony have put the wind up Microsoft and pretty much forced these changes – it would be great to see Microsoft now pulling something out of their arse that made Sony go “Whoah, we need to do something about that.”
gamerbuff
No amount of microsoft chsnges can fix a 50% shortfall in grunt the Xbox one suffers.
I would be pretty annoyed at microsoft if I were a xb1 gamer.
mrfodder
The first game that is “Better without Kinect” will see all existing Kinects unplugged permanently.
Kennykazey
You won’t need to unplug it to reclaim the 10 percent, Kinect just won’t work with the game.
Although I can see voice-control on an OS-level staying put.
ABlokeCalledDaz
Well done Phil, certainly looks like he can turn some of the negatives around for Microsoft. Not quite ready to get myself an X1 yet but it’s looking a lot more tempting that it was in the last few months.
skibadee
man what a disaster of a console it will go down in history as how not to launch a product.
Starman
The Wii U has that title firmly won.
bunimomike
I couldn’t believe how Microsoft didn’t learn from the PS3’s launch. It wasn’t terrible but it could have been so much better. Oh well.
However, if they have a bit of horsepower spare in the Kinectless versions… how does that affect the older Kinect-based models? I assume it’ll be truly switched off and patched. Um, I guess. :-\
Zimsalabim
COUGH! “Dreamcast” COUGH!
hornet1990
The curse of the third console… Sony had it to begin with with the PS3, Sega had it with the Dreamcast, Nintendo with the N64 and now it’s Microsofts turn. Only Sony has so far managed to turn the situation around into a major success, the jury is still out for MS…
pitbullmern
@ hornet1990. The Dreamcast was segas 4th console. The Saturn was 3rd but that was a commercial failure too.
Kennykazey
To answer your question Mike;
The Xbox holds off 10 percent of power (no idea exactly how they got this percentage, but it uses CPU, GPU and RAM) for Kinect. This is unavailable to developers and makes sure that there’s enough resources for the features whilst running a game.
Moving forward, developers will have the option to not use Kinect and thereby unlock these resources for improved performance.
The hardware remains the same, it’s up to developers if they want Kinect or slightly more performance.
hornet1990
@pitbullmern that is what I meant ;)
The point still stands though, and arguably on that evidence if you don’t turn it around then the forth console will also fail (Dreamcast and GameCube). That’s not good news for MS either!!
Starman
32X? Dreamcast was segas 5th.
hornet1990
32X was an addon to the megadrive/genesis, not a standalone console in it’s own right (although no doubt someone will argue that you could buy it in a bundle or something….)
Starman
Nice to see they are listening and changing things rather than stubbornly ignoring people. Hopefully kinect is phased out of most upcoming games.
hazelam
was it even in most upcoming games?
Starman
Hopefully not.
Kennykazey
With 3 operating systems I’m sure there’s plenty to streamline and improve.
ron_mcphatty
Three, really? I’m a bit behind on these things but it always seemed like the US of A sports fans got a better deal with the XBox One and Kinect than anyone else, maybe this’ll help things level out with the ps4 and promote even more competition for awesome first party games.
Kennykazey
Yup, there’s the Xbox OS, a Windows based OS and another OS that ties them together (no, really).
I totally agree that the Xbox services seem great for the US, but lackluster everywhere else.
ron_mcphatty
How bizarre, thanks for that, my fingers inching its way slowly towards the pulse!
JR.
Thanks to everyone who supported us and our original vision for XBO but it didn’t sell nearly as well as the competition so F U. The console that you bought six months ago will be unrecognisable in the not too distant future and that expensive Kinect camera that we bundled with the original XBO will be useless. I know we said we wouldn’t release a kinect-less XBO and that it was completely essential to the XBO experience but we lied and we’re even changing the OS so it works better without it. Compensation? Hahaha. You don’t matter to us, you already bought it and we have your money, thanks. Yours insincerely, Microsoft.
TSBonyman
It’s going to be interesting to see how exactly this all works out. On the one hand the extra 10% will certainly help them achieve greater parity with PS4 in terms of grunt but on the other hand i’m wondering if existing XB1 owners be able to continue to use Kinect in the ways they’ve become accustomed to once those resources are being used by something else.
Andrewww
MS just started to do their homework. Early Xbone adopters didn’t buy the box because of Kinect but although they had to pay the premium for hardware most of them never wanted. Of course, it sucks, if this rubbish now gets sort of switched off. But I expect most of them to have a clear preference for games of equal graphical quality as the PS4 does. So, the turnaround makes complete sense, and a year from now no one will care or remember.
Voolar
I don’t believe the XB1 will ever catch up with the PS4 in terms of power, there are bottlenecks that can’t be overcome. This also fragments and pisses off the early adopters. As for the Kinectless offering, how will the “share” and “record that” type of stuff work? Perhaps they need to release a new “extra button” controller too…?
It’s all a bit of a mess isn’t it?
I’ve a feeling that the MS heads think that loosing the Kinect and dropping the price is gonna fix everything. They’re wrong.
Kennykazey
I’m sure OS-level voice controls will still work like they do on PS4. As for those without Kinect, I feel pretty certain those features will be controlled by pressing the Xbox button for a little while, double tapping it or in conjunction with another button. It works for Steam using a 360 pad, so I wouldn’t worry.
Starman
You can already record manually. Could from the start.