Gadgetory

well this is David with the verge and this is Microsoft's Xbox one yes it's a games console the successor to the Xbox 360 which is now showing its age eight years after its launch but it's also something much bigger much more ambitious the Xbox one is Microsoft's way of attaching itself to every single thing you do in your living room it's a gaming machine a set-top box a cable box and a computer all rolled into one $499 device for all it's trying to do the box itself isn't much to look at it's not ugly so much as it is just boring it looks like the ultimate sci-fi evolution of a VCR or at least how people in the 80s would have imagined it part glossy part vented and all very black and boxy and humongous there's a disc drive on the left side a glowing capacitive Xbox logo power button on the front and really nothing else to see it's not pretty or well designed like the PlayStation 4 it's just a box for all the many parts of the Xbox one with the new box comes a new controller the Xbox one controller feels absolutely identical to the Xbox 360s gamepad except in the ways it feels better it has clicky d-pad buttons where the 360 had mushy ones and has smoother triggers in a smaller bump for the removable battery but if you've been using a 360 it will take exactly no time to get used to the new controller there's a little more texture on the grips and a little less on the analog sticks though there are still grippy thanks to new rims around their circular edges and the whole controller has a higher more curved profile the glowing Xbox button takes you home from anywhere you are and start and select have been replaced by the occasionally confusing view and menu buttons the coolest new feature is the controller's impulse triggers which are hyper specific vibrations that fit whatever game you're playing in Forza it's made to feel like you're actually holding a steering wheel in a fast moving car it's really jarring and only exists in a few places anyway but it's something developers are definitely going to make use of setting up the Xbox is a long somewhat complicated process and it does take a while but Microsoft does a good job of guiding you through the many configurations updates and options basically you're setting up a gaming machine a universal remote and a PC all at the same time it's definitely worth taking the time to do right when you turn on the Xbox one you'll see a very similar tiled interface to anyone you would see on any other Windows 8 PC it's pretty and colorful and customisable different users can have different colors in different layouts and as soon as you sit down the Xbox recognizes you and adapts everything to your particular setup actually that part's import because while this is very much built like a Windows PC with an 8 core AMD Jaguar CPU 8 gigs of RAM and a 500 gig hard drive it's not designed to be used with a mouse and keyboard or with a touchscreen it's designed to be used with your controller but mostly with your voice that happens through the new connect the astonishingly powerful and accurate device that comes with every Xbox one you don't have to use Kinect but you should it's what automatically recognizes you and signs you in what makes getting around the operating system much easier than it would be otherwise you say Xbox on to turn the console on and the Xbox boots up from there the two commands I use most for Xbox watch followed by the name of a TV channel like ESPN or MTV and Xbox go to followed by any app game menu or option on the device as long as you're in a quiet small room the voice controls work pretty well but if there are any other people other noises or just any echo it starts to get really problematic it felt like half the time it took me two or even three or four tries to get the Xbox one to recognize commands and it didn't always get them right either you also have to learn the particular cadence Xbox go home works but Xbox home doesn't there's a big learning curve here especially for things like navigating in the browser or snapping Skype calls to the side of your screen but it's worth figuring out it's partly worth figuring out because the alternative doing everything with your controller is kind of awkward it's just way easier to say Xbox watch ESPN and then Xbox play local cycle at least it's easier when it works Microsoft has said that developing apps for the new console will be really easy but we haven't really seen the fruits of that yet other than Skype Skype Sinta grated with the Kinect and thanks to its wide high-res camera and impressive microphone it's a pretty fantastic experience to just sit on your couch and talk to someone otherwise for now there's really just the standard set of media apps Netflix and Hulu Amazon and HBO GO ESPN and the NFL plus apps for channels like Fox and FX the potential here is huge and most of the apps work really well but so far the experience feels pretty much like a faster Xbox 360 actually like the 360 only better is a bit of a theme for the Xbox one at least at the beginning even the best games on the console like Forza Motorsport 5 Dead Rising 3 and Ryse son of Rome don't feel like something completely new and different they're gorgeous with better graphics and amazing detail but they just feel like the best yet not a huge leap forward and like the PlayStation 4 the Xbox one has a large group of third party titles you've got your battlefields Call of Duty's since Creed's and of course all your sports games where the experience differs from the ps4 is the Kinect and again it's like the 360s but better connects exclusive titles fall into two very predictable categories full-on fitness trainers and fitness trainers masked as arcade games like Just Dance and Kinect Sports rivals Xbox fitness in particular is really fun and is a great demonstration of how eerily accurate the new Kinect sensor is Zoo Tycoon also uses Kinect a lot and it's a surprisingly immersive and adorably cute simulator the fun does wear off after a while but it's a really cool example of how uniquely you can game with the Xbox one ultimately the biggest way Kinect will come into play is how it can add to games games like dead rising 3 require you to literally shake your controller when a zombie grabs you or shout things like over here to get a crowds attention of course if you don't like shouting and shaking you can just turn it off in settings with other games any Kinect functionality was limited to leaning past walls or some kind of rudimentary voice commands it's nothing that feels forced and in this case is mostly additive and optional but it's only going to get better and more interesting over time the part of the Xbox one experience with the most room to grow where Microsoft is clearly betting on the future rather than the present is its TV integration right now it's kind of a mess changing channels with your voice is great but it doesn't always work and even when it does it's just a series of Xbox menus overtop of your cable boxes menus with no clear indication of what's going on and it's all happening through an IR blaster old and cumbersome technology that doesn't make a good experience for anyone it's not actually controlling your TV it's just sending the commands for 7 3 & 5 to get to channel 735 that means it doesn't work if you're in a menu it doesn't work if you're slightly misaligned it's really just a mess it doesn't support Dolby Digital yet either which means no surround sound which means I won't be plugging it into my cable box anytime soon really the best thing the Xbox one offers right now is that you don't have to switch inputs between the Xbox in your cable box that's kind of the whole point and switching from TV to game is really easy but even then the console takes a few seconds to turn on freezes when switching channels sometimes and every once in a while the TV app will just crash unless everything was broken everything else the Xbox one offers on top of your TV experience the app channels and the awkward overlaid playback controls are really better left alone for now anyway if Microsoft can integrate better and actually replace your set-top box instead of just being a middleman between it and your TV it could be really great that's really the story of the Xbox one it's trying to do so much it has so many good ideas of course having a computer underneath my TV is great and of course I hate my set-top box and of course I want to switch between games in ESPN and even do both at the same time but right now none of that works as well as it should the voice control is just good enough that I want to use it all the time but so inconsistent that I can't possibly do so the Xbox one is a great game console absolutely and out of the gate there are more good games like Ryze and Forza then on the ps4 but that's not what Microsoft is going for if you're buying a console right now for right now it's purely a decision based on games pick the one with the games you want to play and buy that one two five years from now that might change and Microsoft might have a big wide offering with everything from great games to the greatest set-top box ever but there's a long difficult road to that point and I can only pass the time killing zombies for so long