It’s been roughly two days since the unveiling of the Xbox One, just enough time to let the announcement be processed and consumed by most around the net. Interpretations by most have not been favorable to say the least. While some may claim it to be a typical case of the gaming media being in an echo chamber of negativity, it all keeps coming back around to a very simple truth of the press conference itself:
The announcement was not for gamers.
In some ways this isn’t surprising. We’ve seen the Xbox 360 shift its intended usage from blade-swapping game machine to blocky ad-delivery Netflix box. The Xbox One continues Microsoft’s grand plan to dominate and control every facet of media in the living room, hoping that one day all consumers will have open floor space for their cameras whilst you integrate your surface to whatever smartglass app happens to coincide with the program on the screen. It’s an ambitious goal for sure. But for hardcore gamers and even mild gamer aficionados alike, this isn’t what we want to hear.
Hard to think I’d quote John Riccitiello, but his recent article at Kotaku says it best:
“The first and most obvious of these pitfalls is if Sony or Microsoft forgets who brought them to the dance in the first place. Gamers.”
At this time, the only attractive features gamers have seen about this console is the console specs, which end up being largely in line with Sony’s PS4 and dwarfing the WiiU, all standard stuff like an 8 core cpu with a 64-bit architecture, 8 gigs of ram, an AMD gpu, 500 gigs of onboard storage, etc. This and an actual look at the box and controller all are positives in the books for gamers, but thats about it when it comes to the presentation. Everything else being shown off if you go back and look at the conference are exclusive deals for TV content and Kinect functionality.
What’s been worse has been almost all the info being presented after the conference that Microsoft of course would not present up front. Always Online isn’t as bad as was speculated, like kicking you out of a game if the connection drops, but the Xbox One does need to check in online, what’s being speculated at least once every 24 hours. Used games are somewhere between a small licensing fee and having to rebuy the entire game every time. Live accounts still have a premium feature, which does share over the One and 360, but will no doubt be required for online gaming and probably other online services like Netflix. Kinect is bundled with every system and is required to use the console, and will always be on, even if the console isn’t in use.
All of these “features” just serve to fragment the consumer base for a new console. Gamers would rather see software. Software is what sells a system, and Forza, Call of Duty and Quantum Break aren’t nearly enough to sell this monolith on its own. The onus is now on Microsoft to make a phenomenal presentation at E3 in terms. Comparatively, Sony is still riding a wave of goodwill of presenting first, as well as advertise the ease of publishing for third-party devs and indie publishers. Rest assured, E3 this year will be very interesting, as we haven’t seen a true presentation for a new console generation for years now.
If I had to make a choice now though, Sony is looking far more attractive than Microsoft.
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