Yes, and thankfully its no longer required to be plugged in and any Kinect required commands in games have been made optional. I'd be PO'd if I bought a game and found out I had to use voice commands without any choice in using the controller. I have no interest in playing any game that requires voice commands.
If it is just a standard hdd that can be easily replaced without any wierd proprietary connections, why did MS decide to not make it swappable? Any serious explanation for this other than they want you to buy their own external drives for expansion or send the whole console in for repair when it fails.
bettter for a non-Japanese company to buy Xbox if it ends up being sold. I wouldn't want a return to the days when the Japanese cornered the console market and western style games were few and far between. An interesting aspect of the console wars is west vs east that would be lost.
Agree 100%. Along with being to easy there are also too many, and I see they are giving more away on Xbone. Achievements have become meaningless with so many easy and pointless gimme achievements. They should be a representation of accomplishment or skill. They should be a compliment to a game as something to work towards and show off with pride and satisfaction. Halo 4 is one of the awefull offenders that come to mind with pointless ones like PWND and Badge and the ability to get a hand...
This is telling of MS's stratagy with the Xbone and how they got everything else backwards. Why would they do this? I've been asking that question with most every other aspect of the Xbone.
Maybe MS will grasp this as well. Pornhub and Kinect, what a great combination.
True, but all things being equal, wouldn't an internal power supply for a laptop be much more convenient than an external power brick? Same with the consoles, a power brick isn't neccesaraly a bad design but it isn't as ideal as an internal supply. Internal power creates less wires and clutter and makes moving things around and placing things easier.
An integral part of the system that can be unplugged and never used. The developer counting on it is nonsense as well as they can also count on fewer Xbox Ones sold due to the higher price Kinect brings. Developers will develop based on usage and demand for Kinect, not becuase every console has one.
I like the logic to it, especially when it comes to easily accessible ports. Something the Xbone could have used in regards to its USB ports.
Great, another reason to hate Kinect.
The last section that compares GDDR3 memory and DDR3 memory is interesting. Shows the Xbones priorities weren't gaming compared to the 360 and that the 360 8 years ago ad superior memory.
Achievements should be a representation of skill or accomplishment, only in that sense do they mean anything. To many gimme achievements and ones for pointless tasks are what has watered down any meaning in achievements. Halo 4 is one game that comes to mind with to many pointless and easy cheevos like PWND and Badge.
Is the picture on the front meant to resemble a cassette tape? That along with the console looking like a VCR is MS trying to bring back glorious memories of the 80's?
Another feature removed that the 360 had and even the original Xbox. Why remove the feature, even if CD's aren't used that much today? Does it cost that much or take alot of code to allow the console to do it? Even if most wouldn't use the feature its still gone for those that would use it. I thought the Xbone is supposed to be an all in one device, the media center of your living room. Right now my 360 looks like a better option to fill that role.
What is to stop any single player game from using the cloud to offload some required proccessing? If MS is touting the cloud as something that can make the console 3x more powerful it can be applied to single player just as easily as multiplayer. http://www.oxm.co.uk/54748/...
If the Xbone is weaker than PS4 and the cloud is needed to keep games on p...
you forgot to mention Kinect is the reason the system as a whole is less powerful than PS4, having spent so much time developing for it and having to use cheaper components for the console to keep the price down. Kinect is also the reason for launch delays in various regions due to problems with voice recognition and is one cause for lower production yields for troubles getting the camera parts. Not much need to mention MS focus on Kinect all these years has left new IP's and exclusives...
I don't think they would have needed to scrap the main components of the hardware or design. A release 6-12 months later should have been enough time to up the esram from 32mb or put in faster ddr3 ram. At the very least they would have had more time to optimize their drivers and OS. The console clearly was meant to be released in 2014 anyway.
All signs point to it being rushed and true they would have been better releasing it in 2014. Sony getting a few months head start, or even a year, wouldn't have been a big deal when looking at a device meant to last 10 years. The fact that PS4 has been in development for 2 more years than Xbone is significant. Beyond that Sony learned from their mistakes, and MS made and is making the same ones Sony did 7 years ago. I would have been happy with my 360 another year and get the next gen...
"why, given the £80 premium, has Microsoft failed to provide a machine capable of offering the same performance - a reasonable performance - as its rival?"
The answer to this question is simple. MS decided to spend so much effort developing Kinect 2.0 and inlcude it in every console so that in order to keep costs down used cheaper components for the console. Kinect took precendance over creating a console powerful enough to compete with Sony.
I have no problem with passive Kinect functionality, nor do I take issue with anyone that wants to use Kinect. My concern would be games implementing Kinect motion or voice functionality that would be required to use. If its a Kinect game thats one thing, but unless every game that requires Kinect actively in some form explicitley states it how would someone know before buying the game? The examples stated in the article are now optional to use instead of mandatory and thats a good thing, ...