It’s difficult to overstate the pleasure of switching the Xbox One on from standby. “Xbox: On” I say, as I walk into my living room. The menus are on screen, not quite before my backside hits the sofa but certainly before I’ve settled in comfortably. It’s fast and it’s intuitive and it doesn’t even feel prohibitively weird to be barking commands at consumer electronics after you’ve done it a few times.
The new Kinect is a big part of that process, obviously. Not only does it house the microphone that listens to your commands, it’s home to the camera that sees your face and logs you in to your Live account. If there’s more than one person present with an account on that machine, it defaults to whoever it sees holding a controller (or possibly the most frequent user? It was difficult to work out the process). If nobody has picked up the controller yet, or it’s unclear who to pick, it displays a selection screen. Smart, slick, fast and helpful.
Kinect also keeps an eye on your controller. In certain games, you can use motions with the controller to perform in-game actions, even though there are no motion sensors inside the new Xbox One controller. That’s because it beams out an IR signal that Kinect’s trio of gently glowing red spots are watching. So it works similarly to the Wii Remote and sensor bar to know roughly what your controller is doing.
That might initially seem like a gimmick but, again, it’s put to subtle and useful work by the system. If Kinect notices that your controller isn’t moving and it isn’t taking any inputs – while watching Netflix for example – the Xbox One puts it into a low-power state and conserves battery life. Another small, subtle thing that we will probably all fail to even notice in a few months but it makes the overall experience a little bit more enjoyable.
Unfortunately, it’s not all good news. The Xbox One’s menu system will be immediately familiar to anyone who uses Windows 8 or any of the variations on its tile-based system. That’s not necessarily bad but without the intuitive pointing options of a mouse or finger, it’s laborious to navigate. If you’re adamant about not using Kinect, or unable to practically rely upon it for navigation, then the home menu on Xbox One is a bit of a chore.
Compare these two scenarios. In scenario one, you walk into a room and say “Xbox: On”, pick up your TV remote and hit the on button. By the time you’ve sat down on the sofa, the menus are fading up onto the screen. “Xbox: go to Netflix.” Wait a few seconds for the app to load up your Netflix account. “Xbox: Select. Select One. Play” and now there’s an episode of Modern Family playing on my screen.
In scenario two, you walk into a room, hit the Home button on the controller and turn on your TV. Kinect is unplugged so you’re not signed in automatically – it boots to a generic, bare-bones, menu screen. It’s five button presses to get up to the “Sign in” option and sign into my account.
My personalised home screen is now loaded but I need to find Netflix. Luckily, it’s an oft-used app so I’ve already pinned it to my menu – otherwise it’s a trawl through every app I’ve installed to find the bright red Netflix tile. Pinned items are in a handy section over to the left but it’s still four button presses to start it up. Because we signed in, it knows what content to load and signs me right into my account but it’s still another two button presses to play Modern Family and that’s only so few because it happens to be the first option on my menu.
So Kinect and voice commands aren’t essential but they are definitely encouraged.
It’s full of little quirks too. If you want to watch a Blu-ray, you’ll need to download the Blu-ray Player app from the app store (it’s free). Likewise, if you want to listen to an audio CD. TV functionality being limited in the UK (and of limited use, anyway) kind of takes the wind out of the sails of one of the console’s biggest pre-launch boasts, too.
The Upload Studio app is needed if you want to edit or share your recorded gameplay with anyone, it’s not just a part of the Game DVR app that’s pre-loaded. That Game DVR application can’t be used to grab screenshots, either, only video. Upload Studio sends your clips to an activity stream for friends to watch on their consoles or to SkyDrive so you can grab links and download them or share on social networks from mobile or PC apps. It’s useful but not incredibly convenient for how I’d prefer to use the system and the lack of a still screenshot option is a bizarre omission.
Likewise, the lack of streaming options seems a big miss for the console, made even more noticeable by the rampant success of the PS4’s streaming capabilities and the interesting and novel things people are doing with it.
Some of the functions and apps that are built in really are useful though. Snap is something that has the beginnings of a tremendously useful system. Essentially, you can put just about anything in a sidebar next to your main program. You can Skype with someone while you browse the internet or you could watch Sky Sports News (if you have a TV device with an HDMI output) while you play FIFA 14. You could play a game, with its walkthrough in a browser window right there on your TV or you could have Game DVR in your sidebar while you set up those YouTube hits of the future.
If you’re willing to submit to the practical necessity of Kinect usage, and you give it a little bit of time to learn the voice commands, it’s a smooth and slick experience. Voice recognition seems much improved, with some anecdotal evidence that it’s faring much better with strong local accents this time around. I had some difficulties in the first few hours, which may have been because I was suffering from a head cold so I was a bit stuffed up. Since then, it’s been functioning perfectly, with only occasional repetition of commands needed.
If you’re determined that you’ll never speak to your tech then navigation around the home menus will probably take a little more work and some learning before you’re entirely comfortable with them.
The range of apps and their functions feel a little bit unfinished but what is there is a great start and there are one or two elements of the user interface that have got a very bright future ahead of them. Get a screenshot function and live-streaming into there and all the major problems would be smoothed over for me but there is still a way to go in order for this system to feel quite as fully featured as its predecessor, regardless of the futuristic bells and whistles.
coruscant
Damn, sounds difficult to navigate without Kinect. But then whenever I’ve played a 360 I’ve always found the menus to be over-complex. Looking at the PS4’s menu though, I don’t think it’ll be much better. I really wish they’d kept it closer to the XMB.
Kamokazi-UK
Thanks for that, good read. I wonder why you have to actually download an App rather than have it as an out of the box experience or just part of the day-one patch?
Peter Chapman
I wondered about that. The only thing I could think of is that they want to be able to report the number of downloads so they can say “well, only 30% of XBO owners want to watch Blu-rays” and then cut out the functionality (or not) in a future hardware revision? Or maybe it’s a license thing? Bit weird, anyway.
hazelam
i would guess it being a license thing, like the way they sold the DVD dongle for the original Xbox separately.
seems kind of at odds with the whole “all your media in one box” message they’re putting out.
still, it is one of the few features that doesn’t require a gold sub.
does it? O_O
Alex C
License thing, or the ease of having the player upgradeable in software so it doesn’t need a fw update. Initial reports suggest the ps4’s BD player isn’t as good as the PS3’s, so this is a smart way to do it.
boeboe
JUDAS!!!
Vallon
A good read :) I wish I’d preordered a few day one forza packs, just because I saw one go for £860 on eBay yesterday (!?!!?!). Personally I think when the functionality is sorted, its had a redesign aka slim model THEN I’ll pick one up (maybe).
The only exclusive I want to play is Titanfall, and my PC will be more than capable of running that so I don’t see what else the xbox one brings me that my PS4 won’t (kinect is still way off being perfect ATM from what I’ve read). I actually picked up a Wii U instead to go alongside my upcoming PS4 as with games like Mario 3d, bayonetta 2, X, Mario kart 8 I think that has more exciting exclusives than xbox.
I’ve owned 2 xbox 360s, and I just feel this generation the ps4 is going to offer everything I need. It’ll be interesting to see how the consoles change over the next few years as software improves. An exciting time to be a gamer regardless of which one you go for!
matthangzhou
Not paid a lot of attention to Xbox one of late as I’m more of a playstation guy so this was an interesting read cheers Peter.
Doesn’t sound the best system to be honest but has a lot of potential.
leeroye
Interesting read. I am amazed that TV for countries outside the US is not integrated given the emphasis MS have put on it. The lack of information coming from MS about when it will be is a bit disturbing.
Given that the TV features are so central to the system i cannot believe they have not sorted deals with SKY etc well before release.
cam the man
Never found it difficult pressing a few buttons to turn a electronic device on but there’s been loads of reports about how useful the original kinect was for disabled folk so it has it’s merits.
There’s only one exclusive for X1 (Forza) against at least four for PS4 so I can’t see myself ever getting a X1.
DividSmythe
Nice little insight. I did have day one on pre-order but had to cancel if I didn’t I wouldn’t be able to afford Ps4, which is going to cost me over £800. Which for me is a lot of cash to dump. I will buy it before Xmas 2014 but going back to the Library of 360 compared to Ps3 doesn’t excite me.
Is it Friday yet? The first time in my life I haven’t been excited for my birthday (which comes next week) over anything.
Andrewww
Well, from what I read, both systems were rushed to market and are missing some core functionality, but none of which can’t be made up for with patches and firmware upgrades.
But I think, for some reason Sony was further on with development early on and possibly they knew, which is why they came out first in February. They must have put MS under a lot of pressure, which got even worse when some core functionality of the Xbone had to be changed after E3.
In some reviews, the Xbone fares quite badly, due to much longer startup times and half-baked language recognition in some regions (Germany).
I was surprised even Engadget currently recommends the PS4 over the Xbone, but it’s definitely good there is choice and competition. I just hope there’s not a relevant drive problem for them.
OneShotWook
I have never missed instruction manuals so much as i have since i picked my xbone up.They are on the machine (or online) but either they keep moving or i just keep forgetting where they are.
As an aside i had the one free with Forza which i otherwise wouldn’t have bought because of it’s genre but the game has blown me away.