What follows is a fanboi review of the XBox One after a couple days with the product. I’ve always been a fan of the line, I never had problems with my XBox 360, and I never really considered bailing on the One to a PS4 after all the pre-release drama. I looked forward to the One’s release for a month before it came out and then waited another month after release to get one for Christmas. It probably goes without saying that you should take all this fanboism with a grain of salt.
The Good
- Set up was super simple. Physically, there were just a few things to plug in and place. The Kinect did it’s own testing of the room and guided on placement, to ensure the camera and sound were optimized. There were a couple updates to download and apply, but they went smoothly.
- The electronics integration is pretty amazing. The XB1 serves as an entertainment hub in that it controls all the other devices and is the brain of the operation. I didn’t realize devices could be controlled through HDMI – they can. Now the XB1 turns on the TV, DirecTV receiver and audio receiver without any real help. All of this was done with a single cable I already had in place, so no fancy (re)wiring. We really have no need for a universal remote now.
- Streaming is a snap. It’s very easy to stream video from the internet and locally to the XB1 from computers and cell phones on the network. There’s native support in all the devices we own, so it’s as simple as clicking a button or right-clicking a file and choosing to play on the XBox. This makes Chromecast and the 25′ HDMI cable I ran around the outside of the room to my laptop obsolete.
- Voice control is the future. Navigating the XBox with your voice is somewhat gimmicky, but being able to turn on the TV, navigate to a specific channel, pause the DVR, and mute the audio receiver hands free is pretty awesome. Did I mention we no longer have a need for our universal remote? “XBox On [pause] Watch TV” and BAM we’re watching television without touch anything.
- We finally have a Blu-ray player. I was holding out until this generation game console because I didn’t want another duplicative box sitting around after it did.
The Bad
- There is no DVR integration, other than pausing and seeking. We can view the DTV guide, but can’t set anything to record or navigate our list of recorded shows. This means we still have a DTV controller for recording and playing recorded programs. Hopefully the voice and DTV integration progresses to the point of making 100% voice control a viable option.
- The avatar app is wickedly unstable; crashing about a dozen times before completing what we wanted.
- The Kinect is always on. There’s a chance some lonely guy at Microsoft is listening to and watching everything that goes on in our living room. There seems to be somewhat of a gender gap in the concerns over privacy about this one.
- The XB1 UI is largely based on Windows 8’s Metro. People aren’t a fan of it and I’m inclined to agree. I understand MS is trying to make something that works well with touch and is also usable on non-touch devices, but they’re still missing the mark. I’d like them to make it easier to find out which friends are online.
- You need the disc to play the game and there’s only one slot. I think it’ll be annoying to have to constantly swap discs to watch a movie and play video games. I can avoid this by buying downloaded versions of the games, but then I can’t sell my used games. They’re the same price – am I willing to give up any used sale for not having to swap discs? Not sure. They should have made it so you could authorize a disc to your XBox serial, play as much as you want without the disc, and block anyone else using it until it was unauthorized. Having a second disc slot isn’t practical, so this would be the best way minimize disc swapping and still preserve resale. Given MS didn’t want to allow resale at all, I doubt this will ever happen.
The Verdict
You’ll notice there isn’t really any mention of video games in this. It plays games perfectly well and the graphics are marginally better, but the value comes in what it does besides play video games. If people are looking for a pure next gen gaming box, I can see how they’d go for the cheaper PS4. I buy two games a year, at most, so I find much more value in the entertainment hub functionality. In just a few days it’s become a seamlessly integrated component of our living room. Melissa bought a (downloaded) Kinect game on day one, so the appeal is certainly more broad than a hardcore gamer’s plaything. Nice job Microsoft. I’m still firmly a fanboi.