The game console that would rule your living room (but shouldn't quite yet)
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The good: Microsoft's Xbox One
integrates live TV in an innovative fashion and can control your cable
or satellite cable box, TV, and receiver. Most games present noticeably
improved graphics over those on the Xbox 360. The One has a slightly
better roster of exclusive launch games compared with the PS4's.
The bad: The
live TV integration is fraught with frustrations: Kinect voice commands
don't always work, the new dashboard is more confusing than it needs to
be, and the system lacks full DVR integration. It costs $100 more than
the PS4, and the additional Xbox Live Gold membership fee is required to
use nearly every cool feature. The lineup of launch games lacks a
Halo-caliber must-have title.
The bottom line: The
Xbox One goes beyond gaming with its ambitious live TV integration, but
at launch it can't deliver a knockout blow to the PS4 due to a higher
price and uneven voice control. We suggest you wait for improvements,
but for now, the Xbox One is better suited to forgiving early adopters.
Just a week after the encouraging debut of the PlayStation 4, Xbox One claims the spotlight.
Arriving a full eight years to the day after the Xbox 360, the Xbox One stakes a bold claim as the command center of your living room. Its name says it all: the One Box that would have you view all your living room entertainment -- from gaming, live TV, online video streaming, or Skyping with friends and family -- through its hardware.
A big part of that do-it-all promise is the inclusion of the second-generation Kinect -- no longer an option, the motion sensor/remote extender/voice control microphone is included with every Xbox One -- and a big reason Microsoft's console clocks in at $499, a full $100 more than Sony's offering. (Gone, meanwhile, are the onerous DRM and "no used games" restrictions that dogged the Xbox One's announcement phase.)
So the Xbox One aims high, but does it fly too close to the sun? Is the $100 premium over PS4 worth it? Is the console's entertainment and TV integration fully realized? Should Xbox 360 owners upgrade now or wait?
These are the questions you've had all year -- and now, it's time for the answers.
What's in the box
Inside the Xbox One box is the console, its power brick, the Kinect sensor, a 6-foot HDMI cable, one controller, and one chat headset. Like the $400 PS4, there's only one version of the Xbox One, a 500GB system for $500.
Even though Kinect isn't vital to the Xbox One's functionality, you're still left paying the $100 premium for the Kinect, which comes in the box. (Of course, Kinect was originally required, but backlash forced Microsoft to remove it as a prerequisite.)
Arriving a full eight years to the day after the Xbox 360, the Xbox One stakes a bold claim as the command center of your living room. Its name says it all: the One Box that would have you view all your living room entertainment -- from gaming, live TV, online video streaming, or Skyping with friends and family -- through its hardware.
A big part of that do-it-all promise is the inclusion of the second-generation Kinect -- no longer an option, the motion sensor/remote extender/voice control microphone is included with every Xbox One -- and a big reason Microsoft's console clocks in at $499, a full $100 more than Sony's offering. (Gone, meanwhile, are the onerous DRM and "no used games" restrictions that dogged the Xbox One's announcement phase.)
So the Xbox One aims high, but does it fly too close to the sun? Is the $100 premium over PS4 worth it? Is the console's entertainment and TV integration fully realized? Should Xbox 360 owners upgrade now or wait?
These are the questions you've had all year -- and now, it's time for the answers.
Editors' note: This review was conducted using an Xbox One running on a beta environment. Microsoft has told us this was fit for review, but if there are significant changes after public release, we'll update this review where appropriate.
Inside the Xbox One box is the console, its power brick, the Kinect sensor, a 6-foot HDMI cable, one controller, and one chat headset. Like the $400 PS4, there's only one version of the Xbox One, a 500GB system for $500.
Even though Kinect isn't vital to the Xbox One's functionality, you're still left paying the $100 premium for the Kinect, which comes in the box. (Of course, Kinect was originally required, but backlash forced Microsoft to remove it as a prerequisite.)
Unlike the PS4 -- which includes a free month of the PlayStation Plus
service (and its accompanying free games) and a $10 voucher for online
purchases -- Microsoft gives you neither extras nor freebies. That
stings, considering you'll need an Xbox Live Gold account ($60/year) to
do pretty much anything on the Xbox One beyond playing single-player
games. (More on that later.) That said, existing Gold members can
grandfather a new One console onto their current 360 account at no extra
charge.
The hardware
Under the Xbox One's hood is an eight-core AMD CPU, 8GB of DDR3 RAM and a GPU clocked at 853 MHz. The Xbox One's specs trail the PS4's only slightly, but it's important to keep in mind this was the case last generation as well. Both consoles' architectures are more closely constructed this generation, so for the most part we'll likely see similar graphical performance.
(Credit:
Sarah Tew/CNET)
The Xbox One is significantly bulkier and notably less sleek
than the PlayStation 4; some have described it as a retrofitted VCR.
Quite frankly it's not really anything special to look at, though the
glowing white Xbox logo on the right panel is oddly soothing.
One ugly carryover from the 360 is the Xbox One's external power brick. That's in contrast to the trim PS4, which manages to keep its power supply tucked inside.
The Xbox weighs around 8 pounds and measures in at 13.5 inches wide by 10.4 inches deep by 3.2 inches tall, but it doesn't go as deep as the PS4 (10.8 inches by 12 inches by 2 inches). Unlike the PS4, the Xbox One's internal 500GB hard disk is not user-replaceable. Wireless Xbox One features include 802.11n and Wi-Fi Direct, but there's no built-in Bluetooth support.
The box is littered with vents on top and around the sides. Xbox One is designed to be on nearly 24-7, if only because it sits in line between your cable box and TV. I've had the console on more often than not when I've been home, and impressively enough, the machine barely makes any noise. (That's a far cry from the jet-engine din of the original Xbox 360 consoles.)
Kinect 2.0 is bundled into the Xbox One system and is meshed
into the console's operating system, more so than the PS4's PlayStation
Camera (an optional $60 upgrade to the Sony system). Kinect is not
required for operation, but Microsoft is never shy to heavily recommend
attaching the device during the initial setup. The camera and microphone
array take up a little more space than one of those old-school
industrial Swingline staplers, so finding a spot for it shouldn't be too
much of a task. Be warned, though, unlike the PS4 camera, you can't put
the Kinect on top of your TV; that could be especially problematic if
you have a sound bar at the base of your screen.
When it's powered on, you'll notice three infrared (IR) blasting beacons emanating from the front of the Kinect. In fact, the Xbox One can send and receive IR commands, which means it can both control your TV and audio receiver or sound bar (to a degree), and accept commands from a standard universal remote.
(The PS4 can do neither, even with its camera connected.) Note, however, that the Xbox's database of control codes isn't comprehensive; we already found some mainstream TVs that it wasn't able to control.
Around back is a collection of ports: an HDMI-in and -out (for live TV integration), an optical audio port, two USB 3.0 slots (plus one on the left side for a total of three), the Kinect attachment interface, a slot for an IR blaster, and an Ethernet port. The IR slot is for owners who don't have line-of-sight (if their devices are behind a closed cabinet, for example) between their Kinect and AV devices. For these setups, a wire (not included) must manually run from the console to these devices so they can receive IR commands.
Xbox One must lie horizontally, unlike the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 and 4. Finally, standard-definition TV owners are out of luck; the Xbox One only connects digitally via HDMI.
Gameplay
Most of the Xbox One games I tried out look great and mostly perform well. Dead Rising 3 is capable of displaying a dizzying amount of zombies on screen at once -- way more than its hardware predecessor was physically able to do. Ryse: Son of Rome and Forza Motorsport 5 are the best-looking eye candy among the initial crop of exclusive titles.
As with the PS4, most multiplatform Xbox One games, especially those already available on current-generation systems, only look marginally better than the PS3 or Xbox 360 versions. In certain cases -- EA's sports titles, for instance -- new next-gen engines have been put in place to take better advantage of improved hardware. That said, the majority of games won't truly hit their stride until developers learn to master the system. It's just the nature of the beast and it affects both the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 alike.
During any gameplay session, players can suspend the action and back out into the console's operating system, watch live TV, open other apps, or enter settings. The suspended game is only lost when a new game is started or the console is powered off.
Players can also "snap" certain apps to their gameplay screen, which I'll discuss in depth a little later.
Achievements are back with the Xbox One and presented within their own app in the operating system. Each achievement can be viewed in full-screen mode and, depending on the game, some achievements will actually record gameplay the moment they are unlocked.
Microsoft is supporting independent game development for the platform, and those titles will be available exclusively in the Xbox One Game Store. Outside of digital-only offerings, all titles will be available in disc or digital form. If you buy digital versions of games, you can download and play them on any Xbox One you log in on. If you buy the disc version, that disc must follow you wherever you go. (The PS4 offers the same options for sharing digital and disc-based games.)
All games, disc-based or digital, completely install onto the system. You'll only need the disc to play if that's how you purchased the game.
Just like the PS4, the Xbox One has no backward compatibility at all with Xbox 360 discs. The ability to buy and download classic games from Xbox 360 wouldn't be surprising down the road, but that's strictly wishful thinking for now -- no official announcements have been made.
Since the Xbox One's announcement, Microsoft has really drilled in the idea of cloud computing and how it will supposedly open the door for revolutionary in-game results. None of the launch titles we've seen incorporates cloud computing in any noticeable manner, but we're sure this kind of tech will surface as we head deeper into the console's life cycle.
The controller
It's tough for the Xbox team to have improved upon the Xbox 360 controller. Save for its subpar D-pad, the controller was easily the most comfortable one ever made. For Xbox One, the controller's shape and feel have undergone tweaks, and I can't say it's all for the better.
The new controller isn't necessarily uncomfortable, but it's gripped slightly different and has more angles as opposed the curves of the 360's controller. The Xbox guide button (now the Home button) is placed well away from where the Back and Start buttons used to flank it -- likely to avoid accidentally hitting. The Back and Start buttons are now the View and Menu buttons, respectively.
The Xbox One's controller still has the same layout for face buttons and the analog sticks are laid out in the same format as well. The sticks have smaller circular tops on the joysticks and they can be clicked in. The D-pad is the most different-looking, compared with the 360's controller; it no longer sits on a disc. The plus-shaped directional pad now clicks in four directions, totally eliminating the accidental inputs its predecessor suffered from.
The LB and RB buttons now have much more space atop the
controller and the L and R triggers have a really solid squeeze and feel
to them. There are even independent rumble motors tethered to each
trigger, so, for example, stepping on the gas will shake the right
trigger but not the left.
On top of the controller is a Micro-USB port that can be used if there's a rechargeable battery pack installed. It takes two AAs otherwise. There's also a sync button and two IR blasters that send information to Kinect. This is how Xbox One knows who is signed into the console, but more on that later.
Underneath the controller is a port for connecting a chat headset. Unfortunately, this interface isn't compatible with any 360 headset.
Additional Xbox One controllers can be purchased for $60 and the console can support up to eight connected at once.
Kinect 2.0 and the Xbox One interface
While Microsoft seemed to have gone all-in on how deeply rooted the motion sensing and voice recognition camera was going to be, a vehement pushback from the gaming community changed that. Sure, Kinect isn't required in order for Xbox One to work but it's still very much ingrained in much of the experience.
Xbox One is nearly completely controllable with the Kinect and your voice, though it can make for some frustrating moments. Kinect doesn't always hear you correctly and things that would take seconds to perform on a controller can take much longer as you start articulating and pronouncing every single syllable more clearer.
Kinect 2.0 introduces a handful of new voice and gesture
commands, all of which will take some time getting used to. In fact,
Microsoft provided me with a cheat sheet containing around 30 new voice
commands and five new gestures.
When it does work, Kinect can provide some brilliant "a-ha" moments. Even the simple task of turning the console on without the need to locate a controller is a luxury tough to abandon once experienced for the first time.
The console can log you in using only your face, up to six different faces and six log-ins, to be exact. Once you turn on a controller, it then knows which player is holding which controller. It's a sneaky yet effective trick, especially when multiple users share a single console.
When you're logged in to another console outside of your primary home console, your content is only available if you are the home user (meaning you push the Home button) on a controller. Once another attached user hits the Home button, they are then driving the console. This impacts which games and saves are available too. Essentially, your Xbox Live account follows you where you go. I'll dive deeper into Xbox Live accounts a little later.
Using the Skype app was a really great experience. The Kinect sensor isn't mechanical, but it can zoom in and out taking into consideration the amount of people in a given room. By tracking everyone's skeletons, the Skype video feed ensures everyone stays in the picture during a video conference. Skype is baked into the OS quite well and also responds to its own collection of voice commands.
It's tough to deny the interface's aesthetic similarities to the tiled Windows 8 design, especially how users can pin items to their screen. Almost anything is pinnable, from apps and games, to specific albums, movies and TV shows. Users can also add a touch of customization to the screen with the ability to choose a unique thematic color.
The Xbox One's dashboard seems like a simple three-pillared approach on the surface: Pins, Home, and Store. Pins are the bookmarks you can place for quick access to almost anything and the Store section is the portal to all of the content accessible on an Xbox One. The Home (main) screen houses a large window that contains the app, game, or piece of media currently running. Surrounding it are tiles of recently used software and access to your Xbox One profile on the left.
Unfortunately, what appears straightforward on the surface, hides a handful of complexities underneath. The platform introduces a number of brand-new ideas; the most intriguing of all is probably the "snap" feature, which allows you to snap an app to a third of your screen. It brings the idea of multitasking to a console for the first time, though its implementation can be disorienting.
The hardware
Under the Xbox One's hood is an eight-core AMD CPU, 8GB of DDR3 RAM and a GPU clocked at 853 MHz. The Xbox One's specs trail the PS4's only slightly, but it's important to keep in mind this was the case last generation as well. Both consoles' architectures are more closely constructed this generation, so for the most part we'll likely see similar graphical performance.
(Credit:
Sarah Tew/CNET)One ugly carryover from the 360 is the Xbox One's external power brick. That's in contrast to the trim PS4, which manages to keep its power supply tucked inside.
The Xbox weighs around 8 pounds and measures in at 13.5 inches wide by 10.4 inches deep by 3.2 inches tall, but it doesn't go as deep as the PS4 (10.8 inches by 12 inches by 2 inches). Unlike the PS4, the Xbox One's internal 500GB hard disk is not user-replaceable. Wireless Xbox One features include 802.11n and Wi-Fi Direct, but there's no built-in Bluetooth support.
The box is littered with vents on top and around the sides. Xbox One is designed to be on nearly 24-7, if only because it sits in line between your cable box and TV. I've had the console on more often than not when I've been home, and impressively enough, the machine barely makes any noise. (That's a far cry from the jet-engine din of the original Xbox 360 consoles.)
When it's powered on, you'll notice three infrared (IR) blasting beacons emanating from the front of the Kinect. In fact, the Xbox One can send and receive IR commands, which means it can both control your TV and audio receiver or sound bar (to a degree), and accept commands from a standard universal remote.
(The PS4 can do neither, even with its camera connected.) Note, however, that the Xbox's database of control codes isn't comprehensive; we already found some mainstream TVs that it wasn't able to control.
Around back is a collection of ports: an HDMI-in and -out (for live TV integration), an optical audio port, two USB 3.0 slots (plus one on the left side for a total of three), the Kinect attachment interface, a slot for an IR blaster, and an Ethernet port. The IR slot is for owners who don't have line-of-sight (if their devices are behind a closed cabinet, for example) between their Kinect and AV devices. For these setups, a wire (not included) must manually run from the console to these devices so they can receive IR commands.
Xbox One must lie horizontally, unlike the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 and 4. Finally, standard-definition TV owners are out of luck; the Xbox One only connects digitally via HDMI.
(Credit:
Sarah Tew/CNET)
Gameplay
Most of the Xbox One games I tried out look great and mostly perform well. Dead Rising 3 is capable of displaying a dizzying amount of zombies on screen at once -- way more than its hardware predecessor was physically able to do. Ryse: Son of Rome and Forza Motorsport 5 are the best-looking eye candy among the initial crop of exclusive titles.
As with the PS4, most multiplatform Xbox One games, especially those already available on current-generation systems, only look marginally better than the PS3 or Xbox 360 versions. In certain cases -- EA's sports titles, for instance -- new next-gen engines have been put in place to take better advantage of improved hardware. That said, the majority of games won't truly hit their stride until developers learn to master the system. It's just the nature of the beast and it affects both the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 alike.
During any gameplay session, players can suspend the action and back out into the console's operating system, watch live TV, open other apps, or enter settings. The suspended game is only lost when a new game is started or the console is powered off.
Players can also "snap" certain apps to their gameplay screen, which I'll discuss in depth a little later.
Achievements are back with the Xbox One and presented within their own app in the operating system. Each achievement can be viewed in full-screen mode and, depending on the game, some achievements will actually record gameplay the moment they are unlocked.
Microsoft is supporting independent game development for the platform, and those titles will be available exclusively in the Xbox One Game Store. Outside of digital-only offerings, all titles will be available in disc or digital form. If you buy digital versions of games, you can download and play them on any Xbox One you log in on. If you buy the disc version, that disc must follow you wherever you go. (The PS4 offers the same options for sharing digital and disc-based games.)
All games, disc-based or digital, completely install onto the system. You'll only need the disc to play if that's how you purchased the game.
Just like the PS4, the Xbox One has no backward compatibility at all with Xbox 360 discs. The ability to buy and download classic games from Xbox 360 wouldn't be surprising down the road, but that's strictly wishful thinking for now -- no official announcements have been made.
Since the Xbox One's announcement, Microsoft has really drilled in the idea of cloud computing and how it will supposedly open the door for revolutionary in-game results. None of the launch titles we've seen incorporates cloud computing in any noticeable manner, but we're sure this kind of tech will surface as we head deeper into the console's life cycle.
(Credit:
Sarah Tew/CNET)
The controller
It's tough for the Xbox team to have improved upon the Xbox 360 controller. Save for its subpar D-pad, the controller was easily the most comfortable one ever made. For Xbox One, the controller's shape and feel have undergone tweaks, and I can't say it's all for the better.
The new controller isn't necessarily uncomfortable, but it's gripped slightly different and has more angles as opposed the curves of the 360's controller. The Xbox guide button (now the Home button) is placed well away from where the Back and Start buttons used to flank it -- likely to avoid accidentally hitting. The Back and Start buttons are now the View and Menu buttons, respectively.
The Xbox One's controller still has the same layout for face buttons and the analog sticks are laid out in the same format as well. The sticks have smaller circular tops on the joysticks and they can be clicked in. The D-pad is the most different-looking, compared with the 360's controller; it no longer sits on a disc. The plus-shaped directional pad now clicks in four directions, totally eliminating the accidental inputs its predecessor suffered from.
(Credit:
Sarah Tew/CNET)
On top of the controller is a Micro-USB port that can be used if there's a rechargeable battery pack installed. It takes two AAs otherwise. There's also a sync button and two IR blasters that send information to Kinect. This is how Xbox One knows who is signed into the console, but more on that later.
Underneath the controller is a port for connecting a chat headset. Unfortunately, this interface isn't compatible with any 360 headset.
Additional Xbox One controllers can be purchased for $60 and the console can support up to eight connected at once.
Kinect 2.0 and the Xbox One interface
While Microsoft seemed to have gone all-in on how deeply rooted the motion sensing and voice recognition camera was going to be, a vehement pushback from the gaming community changed that. Sure, Kinect isn't required in order for Xbox One to work but it's still very much ingrained in much of the experience.
Xbox One is nearly completely controllable with the Kinect and your voice, though it can make for some frustrating moments. Kinect doesn't always hear you correctly and things that would take seconds to perform on a controller can take much longer as you start articulating and pronouncing every single syllable more clearer.
(Credit:
CBS Interactive)
When it does work, Kinect can provide some brilliant "a-ha" moments. Even the simple task of turning the console on without the need to locate a controller is a luxury tough to abandon once experienced for the first time.
The console can log you in using only your face, up to six different faces and six log-ins, to be exact. Once you turn on a controller, it then knows which player is holding which controller. It's a sneaky yet effective trick, especially when multiple users share a single console.
When you're logged in to another console outside of your primary home console, your content is only available if you are the home user (meaning you push the Home button) on a controller. Once another attached user hits the Home button, they are then driving the console. This impacts which games and saves are available too. Essentially, your Xbox Live account follows you where you go. I'll dive deeper into Xbox Live accounts a little later.
Using the Skype app was a really great experience. The Kinect sensor isn't mechanical, but it can zoom in and out taking into consideration the amount of people in a given room. By tracking everyone's skeletons, the Skype video feed ensures everyone stays in the picture during a video conference. Skype is baked into the OS quite well and also responds to its own collection of voice commands.
It's tough to deny the interface's aesthetic similarities to the tiled Windows 8 design, especially how users can pin items to their screen. Almost anything is pinnable, from apps and games, to specific albums, movies and TV shows. Users can also add a touch of customization to the screen with the ability to choose a unique thematic color.
The Xbox One's dashboard seems like a simple three-pillared approach on the surface: Pins, Home, and Store. Pins are the bookmarks you can place for quick access to almost anything and the Store section is the portal to all of the content accessible on an Xbox One. The Home (main) screen houses a large window that contains the app, game, or piece of media currently running. Surrounding it are tiles of recently used software and access to your Xbox One profile on the left.
Unfortunately, what appears straightforward on the surface, hides a handful of complexities underneath. The platform introduces a number of brand-new ideas; the most intriguing of all is probably the "snap" feature, which allows you to snap an app to a third of your screen. It brings the idea of multitasking to a console for the first time, though its implementation can be disorienting.
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