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It would be quite the understatement to say Microsoft has turned some gamers off with the Xbox One. Between constantly harping on about the system’s TV features and trying to push always-online DRM on the public, Microsoft’s approach to the system has put a sour taste in a lot of mouths.
That said, the Xbox One arriving on store shelves this Friday isn’t exactly the same machine Microsoft announced back in May, and despite the bad press, the console has a number of things going for it. Dan already laid out why you should wait on the system, so here’s a few reasons to throw caution to the wind and take the Xbox One plunge…
Microsoft Has Dropped All It’s Most Controversial Xbox One Policies
All that stuff that made you so mad earlier this year? The always-online requirement, the blocking of used games, the machine not working unless Kinect was turned on — all that stuff has been thrown on the scrap heap.
Granted, Microsoft has only changed their policies, not their hardware — the Xbox One is probably still capable of doing all those things, but doing a double reversal would be PR suicide, so don’t expect Microsoft to start randomly blocking used games a year down the road or anything.
You Might Learn To Like Its TV Features
Listen, I understand — Microsoft going on and on and on about TV stuff while barely mentioning games when it first unveiled the Xbox One was infuriating. I never wanted to hear the words “Xbox” and “TV” in the same sentence again after that.
That said, get past that initial knee-jerk “ARGH! I JUST WANT MY CONSOLE TO PLAY GAMES!!!” reaction and you might find the Xbox One surprisingly useful. I mean, who really likes their DVR? Anybody? You take whatever the cable company will give you, and usually it sucks. Who likes awkwardly switching between the half-dozen things you have hooked up to your TV? Want to switch from playing a game to watching a TV or movie? Power down the Xbox with one controller, find the remote for the cable box or DVD player and turn that on separately, pick up a third remote and change the video-input on the TV — it’s a pain in the ass.
With Xbox One you could be playing a video game, pause it, switch to watching your show that just came on, then switch to watching old episodes of that show on Netflix then return to your game, un-pause it and keep playing. All seamless. Hell, you can do it all with just your voice if you want — no fussing with remotes. That is pretty cool, admit it.
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Not sucking as hard as first thought and being slightly better than the PS4 in one respect are not really compelling arguments.
This is almost a companion piece to extend why I shouldn’t buy it. It’s selling point seems to be “you might not hate it!”
lol, “You might learn to like its TV features” is just about the worst justification I’ve seen so far. No, I won’t learn to like it. I don’t even have cable, because I would only watch like 3 channels out of 500. And using a DVD remote is not a pain in the ass. Man, technology is making us weird. I’m good with buying a ps4 in about a year or so.
I’m willing to say if you don’t have cable, the Xbox One isn’t for you.
Between Netflix, Hulu, iTunes and illegally streaming stuff online, cable isn’t exactly the wave of the future. I’m cancelling my cable after the Boardwalk Empire finale on Sunday, and it seems like more and more people are following suit. In a few years, all this Xbox One TV stuff might not do a whole hell of a lot for most people.
@Nate, yea, that’s a safe bet. I don’t think it’s going to be for anyone, really. Microsoft does what they want to. I don’t trust them as a company anymore, and I won’t support them. Maybe the Xbox One will be a success and everyone will be happy, but I wouldn’t put it past them to slowly implement all those horrible things they wanted to in the beginning. And I’m still totally fine with pressing two buttons on my remote to switch inputs instead of yelling at my TV. But, like you said, maybe I should just buy one and hope I like it later.
Pretty sure every single pro-Xbox One article I’ve read has helped me decide to get a PS4. And I had an Xbox 360 that I really enjoyed.
“Sony may be touting the PS4 as “The Gamer’s Machine”, but they sure didn’t deliver a lot of good games at launch. By comparison the Xbox One has a pretty damn good line-up. Dead Rising 3 and Forza 5 are both good and even the somewhat sketchy-looking Ryse: Son of Rome is picking up some solid reviews. Just, uh, avoid LocoCycle.”
I don’t know how compelling these scores are to justify this stance.
Ryse is sitting at 61 on Metacritic (and not a particularly generous 61, either, from a quick view of some individual reviews)
Dead Rising 3 is at 78.
Forza 5 is at 82
That’s an average of 74 if we round up.
Compare that to.. let’s say, Killzone, Knack and Resogun on PS4 which averages about 71 on Metacritic total.
I’d say they’re both pretty mediocre at best in comparison, with XB1 just inching ahead.
On the flipside, only seeing one reviewed multiplatform game on there so far, but…
COD: Ghosts is 79 on PS4 and 78 on XBone.
I would also take issue with XBone having more to play on it in 2014 as well. Yes, Titanfall looks sweet. D4 looks like crap, personally, but sure we can count that as well…
You listed Driveclub and InFamous, but what about The Order 1866? Arguably one of the most interesting new IP’s announced this year. What about the promise of Uncharted 4 (if we’re counting a Halo 5 which may not even be out in 2014, I think we can count Uncharted for PS4)… and really, we could go on listing big games that have been announced on either side.
My point is, I don’t think the two topics I’ve picked from this article in this post hold much weight under scrutiny.
I was curious after E3, but it most certainly has my complete attention after the cover story in Game Informer a month or two ago.
It looks fucking insane. Arthurian legends, the Knights of the Round Table, demons and monsters in Victorian England…. yes, please.
That’s a lot of number juggling.
Let’s keep it simple. Dead Rising 3 and Forza are good. Killzone is okay and Knack is garbage. Titanfall is pretty much sure to be a top-quality game. There’s a question mark hanging over InFamous.
What question mark is there hanging over Infamous? That’s ridiculous. It was without a doubt one of the most buzzed about games when it was announced, and ever since then. And Infamous 1 and 2 were two of the best exclusives on either system last gen. Seems like a sure thing to me. Certainly more of one than a brand new IP, regardless of whether or not the people making it are tried and true (and I do really like the look of Titanfall, I’m just sayin’)
And while I’m not really a fan of numbered reviews for many reasons, because of personal preferences varying, I would say in this scenario using something like a Metacritic average of scores is good enough for comparison’s sake. 74 vs 71 is pretty negligible. Especially when all the other things listed in the article above that are meant to sell people on the XB1 aren’t exactly doing the job, as evidenced by this comment thread.
Ryse is just Knack with a crytek engine, very pretty and very boring.
Kind of hilarious to say it’s got solid reviews and then link to a metacritic page that completely disagrees with that assessment.
Also: Dead Rising sucks as in all of them have now been shown to suck. Infamous has a question mark? LOL the only question mark around here is why the first two turds in the Dead Rising series are in your top 50.
This. This is my favorite thing I’ve read all week.
You should take the day off tomorrow.
I like my DVR.
Also, this is probably the most half hearted pro-Xbox One article i’ve ever seen.
The PS4 and XBOX One: Adopt early so you can tell your friends, but there’s nothing to play yet.
From what I understand, multi platform games for this upcoming/current generation will run best on the PS4, since its architecture is closest to a PC. Kind of like how for the past generation, multi platform games ran best on the Xbox 360. That reason alone should be enough to get a PS4 (then you add that it’s $100 cheaper).
I’m interested in Dead Rising 3, but I can wait on it since I’m waiting for a significant price drop on the Xbone, and I have yet to 100% either of the first two.
Maybe, maybe not. It’s too early to tell. But structurally the PS4 and XBone are basically the same. GDDR 5 on PS4 vs. DDR 3 on XB1 is the main difference, but everything else is basically the same just with a different shell around the parts.
Wait. When did people start hating DVRs? I love my DVR, I work late a lot, and I loves TV enough to the point where i don’t want to wait for a day or two for something that was new tonight to be available on inDemand, and I certainly don’t want to pay to watch it on itunes or whatever.
Meh, I’ll wait for a price drop+slim redesign (the Xbox One is HUGE). Also, I’m not seeing any super compelling reasons to want a Kinect. If you absolutely have to go next gen this year buy a PS4. But, honestly, most people should probably wait a year or two when these systems start getting their own games and not just upscaled ports from the current gen.
i love my dvr.
Okay, okay, sorry to question’s everyone’s relationship with their DVR. Me and my DVR are just going through a rough patch.
Electronics relationship counseling… My god, I think I just thought of a way to cash in on being “the computer guy.”
Switching remotes and controllers might be a nuisance. But that doesn’t even compare to someone randomly walking by and shouting “XBox, Off” just to fuck with you
Just the other day I saw an ad that boasted about just that. Guy is watching sports, his girlfriend/wife/whatever comes in and switches his shit over to her video game and he can’t do anything about it. And it’s a good thing, apparently.
Reason number 6 to get an XBone:
It will be slightly more entertaining than just setting 500$ on fire.
This article hasn’t completely changed my mind, but it’s certainly put a new idea in my head. I’ll just show myself out.
My attention span is not yet short enough to require seamless switching between TV, Netflix, and video games. I’m perfectly happy doing one at a time. I also don’t want to pay $500 to yell at my TV, I can do that just fine right now.
Will these TV features transcend to other regions outside of the US? Like ESPN will be available to Canadians and other channels or will it all depend on your cable provider?
I just don’t understand the X-Box One hate. It’s like people are offending by the concept of it existing alone. I’d rather see companies try something new and different, like creating an all-in-one entertainment box that also plays amazing games, rather than the same machine with newer hardware… If that’s what you’re going for, why not get a PC and take care of that shit yourself? The point of a console is to be an alternative, something different.
X-Box One is gonna be super tight.
People are afraid they might accidentally end up buying one if they don’t keep up the hate I think.
Silly me, I always thought the point of a video game console was to play video games.
You want to know when I’ll get an XBox One? When it is smaller, doesn’t come with Kinect, the dashboard is redesigned, has Halo and is $200-$250. Then I’ll think about it.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m holding off on getting a PS4 for the time being too. But Microsoft has dropped the ball so much right now that it is going to take a lot of change to bring me back into the fold.
*Offended.
I wish they didn’t change their “bad” policies, they all sounded like good ideas, although I will say always online isn’t optimal, but my 360 is always online, so it wouldn’t affect me honestly. I’ll probably make the jump when Titanfall comes out, it looks to be THE OB1’s killer app, with InFamous: Second Son being the PS4’s.
Yeah, I wish they were a little bit more stubborn and stuck to their guns. Eventually (the first year of release would be rough though) I think that they could change most of the consumers minds. The original policies were not as much anti-consumer as they were mostly pro-developer(/publisher).
To combat all the revenue lost to trade-ins we already see a lot less singleplayer-only games, a lot more singleplayergames with half-assed multiplayer, a lot more day-one dlc, a lot more micro-transactions.
It’s all great that people are playing more games then ever, but this year more studios closed shop then the last two years combined.
I am not saying that Microsoft is the saviour of the industry, just that seeing the DRM reversal as a good thing for the industry is a very short-sighted (some might say selfish) way for looking at things.
Winter is coming (for the current gaming culture)
Unless it comes in a Bunderu, I’m not interested.
Perfect.
So the Xbox One problems are already trickling in, with a faulty disc drive seemingly being the most prominent. Gamestop and IGN both reporting faulty units so far, from a quick glance.
From one of IGN’s review units:
“When a disc is inserted, the Xbox One makes a grinding noise, but the disc is unaffected. However, Xbox One won’t read any game discs. “Sorry, we can’t play the disc,” a notification says. “Try an Xbox One game, a music CD, or a movie on Blu-ray or DVD.”
I still say that MS WILL pull a double reversal and turn on those features they’ve turned off.
On top of that they have a history of charging people to beta test their stuff before they work out all the kinks. (Vista!)
And I still can’t believe that as big as the xbox one is it still needs a gargantuan power brick!
Finally to quote Eric Limer at Kotaku:
“Xbox Live is also still a ripoff, and the Xbox One doesn’t change that. In fact, it makes it worse. Sure, the PS4 is charging for multiplayer this time around, unlike on the PS3, but for the Xbox One to hide streaming apps behind a paywall while still trying so hard to be a media box is truly absurd.”
“Xbox One will carry on everything you like about Xbox Live while introducing some improvements, including a new feed that will let you track your friends in real time, and a streamlined friend-ing system.”
Except I don’t WANT to “track (my) friends”. I’m not trying to sell them advertising. That’s what Microsoft is using that feature for.