UPDATED: New video shows off the
power of Kinect's voice controls.
It’s
packing plenty of power
The Xbox One is powered by an
eight-core AMD x86 processor and 8GB of RAM – a very similar setup to the PS4.However,
the Xbox One uses DDR3 RAM, while the PS4 opts for GDDR5, which is more
advanced and offers more bandwidth for developers to exploit. That means, in
theory, that the PS4 should offer slightly more graphical grunt.
Microsoft recently announced,
however, that it has increased CPU performance by bumping the speed from 1.6GHz to 1.75GHz, which
should represent a processing increase of around ten percent. It has also
boosted GPU performance by six percent since the Xbox One’s announcement a few
months ago.
There’s also 500GB of hard drive
space, a Blu-ray disc drive and HDMI pass-through, which allows you to hook up
a satellite or cable box and run it through the Xbox One, watching it on your
TV without needing to switch inputs. More on why that’s important later.
UPDATE: Planning on standing your Xbox One up? Microsoft has revealed at the Tokyo Game Show that
the Xbox One is designed to be placed horizontally. "We don't support
vertical orientation; do it at your own risk," says Albert Panello, Xbox
senior director of product management and planning. "It wouldn't be a
cooling problem, we just didn't design the drive for vertical," he adds.
"Because it's a slot loading drive, we just didn't design it for
both".
Kinect
has been overhauled
A Kinect camera will be packaged with every single
Xbox One, and has designed to be totally integral to the experience of using
the console.
The camera itself is now 1080p, and
features an IR sensor for better performance in dimly-lit environments. It’s
also more wide-angle, which means you can stand closer and still have it track
your movements – a boon if, like most of us, you live in something a touch
pokier than a palatial suburban American home.
Its skills have been honed so that
it will track 25 individual joints (thumbs included) as well as the speed and
weight of movements. Facial and voice recognition and even heart rate detection
are on board, with the former allowing you to control almost any aspect of the
Xbox One by talking to it. Turn the system on, start a game or make a Skype
call – all will be possible, and maybe much more.
It can also track up to six people
simultaneously and follow individual controllers as they’re passed from person
to person, shifting split-screen windows accordingly.
Update: A new video showing off the power of Kinect's voice
control has been released, and assuming nothing has been edited, it looks very
impressive indeed. Even complicated actions like snapping apps to the sidebar
can be carried out with voice commands and we can't wait to take it for a spin
ourselves. Let's hope it can handle the various flavour of British accents
though eh?
It
won’t be as restrictive or Orwellian as feared
When Microsoft originally laid out
the plan for the Xbox One, it said that users would not be able to borrow games
from friends, or purchase second-hand titles, without likely paying a fee for
the privilege – and that the console would require an Internet connection, to
check once every 24 hours and make sure that you had all the required
permissions and licences.
The company also said that the
Kinect camera would need to be connected at all times, and that it would always
be listening to you – y’know, in order to switch the console on when you ask. A
concept that seemed a whole lot scarier after it emerged that Microsoft was one
of the first Internet companies to cooperate with the NSA’s PRISM snooping
programme.
After the public and press expressed
concerns and a fair bit of outrage over these plans, Microsoft eventually
performed a u-turn on the DRM and more recently has confirmed
that, if the idea of an always-connected camera concerns you, you can unplug it when you’re not using it (and
then going on to explain that it isn’t an Orwellian creep-machine).
It’ll
support 4K – for video at least
Microsoft has said that 4K video has a place on the Xbox One, for both
video and gaming – but has been decidedly coy about exactly how it will be
implemented.
Our gut tells us that 4K streaming
for movies will come first, with Blu-ray to follow in the future (it hasn’t
even been finalised as a standard, so we understand why Microsoft is keeping
quiet on this for now) and, perhaps, 4K gaming in a few years time. The sheer
amount of processing power required to render games in 4K at a decent frame
rate is the elephant in the room (something we explore in more depth here), so
Microsoft is likely still looking for ways in which it can make Ultra HD gaming
work.
It’s
an entertainment powerhouse
More so than any other console in
history, the Xbox One will be geared towards more traditional forms of
entertainment: TV, movies and music.
Xbox Music is a Spotify-style all-you-can-eat
streaming service, there’ll be TV and movies on-demand (including an exclusive
Halo TV series) and, perhaps best of all, the ability to run an existing cable
or satellite service through the system, using it to switch channels (via
Kinect if you wish), set reminders and run apps (fantasy football, for
instance) that integrate with your favourite shows.
Trouble is, this is for US users,
and there’s no real guarantee beyond a few “we’re looking it” statements from
the likes of Sky, Freeview, Virgin Media etc. that anything major will happen
in the UK. Xbox execs have said that functionality will start small over here
and expand over time, but details are sketchy. It’s really a case of crossing
your fingers and hoping that Microsoft managed to get some deals put in place
with UK broadcasters.
It
offers an evolved controller
The Xbox 360’s standard gamepad
controller is by far the best of the current generation, so Microsoft didn’t
need to change any fundamentals for the Xbox One’s version. There are, however,
over 40 innovations, according to Microsoft. The
overall design and button placement is almost identical, but the much-maligned
D-pad has been overhauled to improve accuracy, the analogue thumb sticks now
offer greater precision, the controllers now feature coloured LEDs allowing
them to be recognised by Kinect, and the battery compartment has been made
integral to the controller body.
Most interesting of all, perhaps, is
that the triggers each now offer their own independent force feedback
vibration. That means gunfire, driving and jolts should be more realistic than
ever.
Each Xbox One console can support up
to eight wireless controllers at the same time – but as yet, no eight-player
offline games have been announced.
This time, Microsoft and Sony are on
more of a level playing field when it comes to online gaming, as with the PS4,
Sony will no longer be offering PSN matchmaking etc. for free. With Xbox Live
Gold, Microsoft has long been king of online gaming and that seems set to
continue, thanks to 300,000 servers, Skype video calling and the ability to
transfer its already-established gaming community straight over from the Xbox
360, thanks to the ability to share a single account across both consoles and
transfer across Gamerscore, friends lists and the like.
Twitch TV has announced that it'll be available
on the One, allowing you to live broadcast your sessions online.
Microsoft is also making much of the
Xbox One tapping into the power of cloud computing in order to allow
games to evolve and improve over time. This is an intriguing prospect, even if
the company hasn’t really sold us on how precisely how much it'll change
things.
