Gadgetory

Microsoft announced an Xbox one in May with a huge focus on entertainment naps an additional development environment based on Windows 8 that sits next to the traditional high powered game console but since then all they've really talked about is the games we haven't seen a lot of the new dashboard we haven't seen much of those apps and we certainly haven't seen much more of the TV integration which sits on top of an existing cable box a strategy we haven't really seen since well the Google TV that leaves a lot of open questions as the Xbox one moves towards launch so we're here at Studio A on Microsoft's campus to talk to the team behind the Xbox one see what they think of this platform where it is now and where it might go think back to 2004 we're working on 360 in a completely different world no smartphones no tablets no app stores all that stuff what you do in a box is just play one game it runs one thing at a time and I don't know if most people realize this but in a console like 360 when you switch games you reboot the box it's constantly rebooting into the into the game now come forward to you know when we were thinking about Xbox one in this a different world this devices everywhere the next-generation gamer is a multitasker and you sit there and you realize as an operating system designer that you have this attention you've got the customer the next-gen gamer wants to do lots of things all at the same time and they want to have something that changes and grows and evolves but the game developer wants a very consistent box they want to know what's going to run exactly the same way every single time so they can optimize the art and have it work as well as it possibly can and it's really hard to come up with one ôs settle serve both so in a way you could say we gave up and well let's make two operating systems one aimed at the at the interactive growing evolving world and one aimed squarely at the game developer so you've been saying that you are running three different operating systems on the hood right you've got three different platforms happening which one is this is this sitting on top of it doesn't matter doesn't matter because it all just works for people they don't have to think about what operating system is where it is definitely an incredible technological achievement that we've been able to build all of this power yeah into a system that this that's the simple well so the reason I asked that question is does this looks a lot like Windows 8 notice like Windows Phone and there's obviously a lot of conversions happening there is definitely and so design language but I think when people see this I think oh windows and they're like there's an expectation those new windows II things is that how you think of it no you know we don't necessarily think of it necessarily as Windows these things the things that we think are really important is it's great to have a common design language so the people feel at home you want it to be a familiar experience but we really put entertainment front and center on your television screen no TV is super interesting because it's one of the technologies that kind of hit this good enough point like a long time ago once the remotes win cordless and we got rid of the dials on TVs and then DVR came along we've kind of been there for a while and people like it I mean I could go on about TV I think that's particularly exciting how do apps mix in with what a show is and what's the what's the changing nature of a show and what you'll see in the beginning is is the basics you know can you continue hook up the cable can you get channels to go is this the heart and soul of your TV experience I believe it's the heart and soul of your living room experience more TV is an integral part of that you know in the u.s. people watch have four hours and 35 minutes of TV per day 35 hours a week so if you want to be the soul of the living room you really have to have a great TV experience otherwise people will just be switching him out on inputs right here's how it works if you're like most people your cable box is plugged into the first input on your TV and a game console like the Xbox 360 is plugged into the second input to switch from watching shows to playing games you've got to pick up the remote and switch inputs and a 360 doesn't know anything about what's on your TV but the Xbox one is designed to change that your cable box plugs into the Xbox and the Xbox plugs into your TV so watching TV is the same as before but now the Xbox operating system is always active and can overlay your TV signal that means you don't have to switch inputs to play games anymore and you can just dive right in but it also means you can get notification it's like game invites and Skype calls while you're watching shows and you can treat TV almost like another app you can even snap to the side of the screen while you play a game but while that's a clever move to make sure the Xbox one is always active and always available it's still kind of a hack the Xbox one doesn't know what you cave walks is actually doing you still have to use your clunky cable interface to manage the DVR and watch on demand and the only way for the Xbox controller Kame boxes by blasting ir commands out of the new Kinect kind of like the world's most expensive universal remote control nothing about this is particularly clean but even getting next to TV is a big deal if the Xbox one is going to take over your living room and Microsoft is betting that this first step will open the door to even better integration sometime in the future generally when people get cable or satellite there's an installer that comes to their house that gets it all set up and for most people that I can never touch it again so we spent a lot of time on this first experience to try to make it easy as possible and the first thing we'll ask you is what is your brand and when I click Next what we do is we know what the best command is to understand how to control your TV so in this case for Samsung it happens to be mute and yes that worked and now we know how to talk to your TV oh wow you know I want to set up set up one guide gonna ask me for my zip code I click enter and ask me who my TV provider is and it only knows the ones in my zip code right and then it's gonna ask me which is my TV lineup right isn't there a element of this where this is like you're definitely like building the most refined version of like the Future Passed like this is the best universal remote control ever made it required an AMD processor and like like windows so I can make this finally work at this simply like thank God but shouldn't you be using all this technology to like really integrate this stuff and I know I've asked you this question before in like 15 different ways it's it's when you see this setup and you that's like it took all of this work to make it this this process this simple there is no one on your team it was like guys let's just call Comcast's and ask them if we can pipe in the cable signal directly oh no I mean I look at this as a band yeah I think it's not it's not an or I'm gonna do one or the other this gets the TV experience Xbox one and one guy into everyone's hands hub and then we'll continue to work with people on in-depth partnerships whether it be cable or satellite providers at partners some you'll see like you saw today are integrated in from from launch on some we'll see emerge you know in year 5 of the program right this is this is the launch of the new generation so I can just say Xbox watch TV TV Xbox one guide there's your programming guide what's on the Discovery Channel it's gonna jump to the Discovery Channel I can just say watch the show mm-hmm watch this channel and it's gonna change a channel right to the Discovery Channel so this is the thing I have a complain about which is it's showing me the Comcast guy there it goes right we are we are definitely watching TV right through your Comcast box that you already have in your living room there are some walls that you're gonna have a TV right I mean you can't search the DVR do you have any facility for searching your DVR this is a place where you can pick up your set top box remote and you use TV like you always have which you can do with the Xbox TV experience and then we're looking forward to shortly after release having smart glasses available as well so you can use your interact with your set-top box through smart box what goes through your mind when you see the one guide changing channel and a Comcast channel banner go up does that look like the future to you or is that a compromise that you guys back I think it's an expression of the reality of the technology that's a market today yeah now absolutely we talk to Comcast and absolutely we talk to everybody but there's a tremendous inertia of hardware that's in market and you cannot go and ask everybody to just go and spend several hundred dollars and replace all their boxes and come up with new protocols it's that's not our reality right so you have to do so you have to come up with a plan that works with the install base and does the best job that possibly can with the machines that people have and is intended to be upgraded over time so as new hardware comes along and new services come along from these providers it can be more integrated and they can look as good as it possibly can yeah right so you've got to take that first step to get it out and to start the conversation but it is a conversation and it will continue over time so now join me this is right built in the guide it's showing me what's on all these various services including the NFL we have an NFL partnership and what's on your SkyDrive which is very interesting so this is my SkyDrive which store you loaded on Xbox go to Internet Explorer and it's a jump right in and Explorer so I started playing Forza 5 before any of this happened I logged out in the middle of the lap and now I can actually it's for the motorsport 5 yep so I can say Xbox go to Forza Motorsport 5 Xbox go to Forza Motorsport 5 a.m. you're always talking at households you're always talking my families and secondary users which is in like fat like I think a lot of people have Xbox is plugged into a TV in the basement and that's it that's the TV that runs the Xbox so you're like you're elevating this to like sit in front of an entire family not necessarily like three college kids in a dorm room right I mean you're making a play for a family that has a cable subscription is that is that the target that's it we want something for everyone I think we'll have a great service for the three guys in the dorm room and we round up those guys for a very specific follow-up question about it oh great well your work through a haze of weed smoke I think you'll be amazed of the power of Laster and so will they especially in that state the game side is very much there's all kinds of horsepower we've seen developers game developers go through this kind of transition the demos are amazing right that feels familiar in a way and it should feel familiar right right you want to continue the legacy of consoles always getting better in games always looking bigger but that that shared side that yeah that app side is really interesting and you can see lots of evolution and lots of change there so so Windows after Oliver as I can just publish the windows oh yeah totally and like throw it out there if you know how to write an app for Windows you know how to write an app for Xbox one the big disruptive animation for television right and even the Xbox one requires a cable box with a pretty crappy UI to get the full experience on it so what hoaxes are you giving developers to enable kind of a big innovation well again it's those app channels you think sad yeah the app channels is where you can mix in hooking up with your content and bi-directional communication real-time bi-directional communication from your servers to the end client and have it mixed into a guide that makes sense right so let's let's look at one of the trends and TV shows right you've got a lot of you know I'm gonna call them interactive TV shows think to our show where a lot of contestants come on and they do their thing and then followed by a one-hour voting window where everyone picks up their phone and yeah and then and then there's a one-hour show afterwards of the results those are video games yeah right they're not TV shows the video games now what could you do with those if you actually had a bite a real-time bi-directional communication with the end consumer does it have to be a one-hour voting window can it be a 24-hour voting window what could you do to change the nature of that program where they don't know the end result yeah way in advance right that's super interesting I think we still have 10 years of learning and innovation and improvement that are ahead of us I mean if you look at the leaps that we've made in just three years you know look at you know the technology that we had when Kinect first launched with what we're shipping with Xbox one like this is just the beginning you know we're not slowing down if anything we're accelerating so to assume that we've got hey this is the best and greatest right now you know what I don't think that will survive for all time when you launch a new console you've got a tremendous amount of work to do right and you take on as much as you possibly can and you just just about kill yourself trying to get the thing out the door yeah right and you can't do any more than that and you lay a good foundation for the future now you've got ten years to play this thing out and to keep innovating and to keep coming up with new technologies and new ways of having experiences so I view this as step one and the beauty of Xbox one is that it is going to change that is the bet is that it is going to change and evolve and improve over time and that these experiences we're all going to get flushed out and we can't declare what they are we have to work with content partners yeah and together we'll explore this territory and we've built the platform which is all about embracing that change and that's I find that very exciting so the clock is ticking but a countdown isn't necessarily to a completely finished product but rather to the release of a platform a platform in Microsoft itself acknowledges will grow and change over the next 10 years what's it gonna look like at the end I don't really know sometimes I get the sense that Microsoft doesn't really know but the overwhelming sense here in studio a is that that change is what's gonna make the Xbox one stronger and stronger over time