Should I/You get an Xbox One?

[oldpueblo]

First, this is not a troll/fanboy thread so please keep it clean. This is meant to be a helpful/educational thread for those on the fence. I'm going to layout my current usage scenario and you who are so full of facts and data will then tell me if I'm missing any information and help me decide if I should keep my pre-order or cancel it and wait for some new developments. I WANT an Xbox One for a several reasons, I just don't know if it will actually add enough value to be worth it for me now. Everyone is free to do the same, make your own post and let's help people make some informed decisions!

This is how I use my current Xbox/media sharing setup:

• Media Center PC piping cablecard live/DVR TV to three Xbox 360s across the house.
• Lots of movies are ripped to the PC so they are easily shared and we use this to watch movies often.
• Multiple family members (kids and I) playing various games across multiple Xbox's.
• Multiple Xbox live accounts, more for transporting profiles/saves easily and because the family pack was a good deal. (yes it's gone now)
• Gaming quality is less important than fun, games like the Lego games and fun multiplayer games are most often played. Not so much massive blockbuster types like Halo, etc
• Easily 80% of the time our Xbox 360 is on in our main family room it's watching either live TV, DVR TV, or ripped media.
• I like the whole Kinect idea and am excited to see where it goes. We play several Kinect games now.

So having just recently found out that the Xbone (sorry I love this name) won't act as a media center extender has mostly killed this for me. I figured at the very least it could do what my 360 does plus more. Instead it will just be a layer of cool things over the top really. Here are a few things I'm thinking out loud:

• I'm really looking forward to the easy profile switching thing, I love how the kinect will be better at recognizing people and this will just happen automatically now and people get their own slice of the Xbox. This convenience is very appealing to me with multiple users.
• I don't care about blockbuster games like Titanfall or Ryse, I may play them eventually but this is primarily a family media box for all things entertainment.
• Having said that, it seems like it's actually doing less in some ways than my current 360s since it won't do media center things like we do now.
• The app snapping is appealing to me, I have actually used IE sometimes on the 360 at a moments notice due to laziness. I like the idea of family Skype calls. I have used the Xbox Skydrive app to show pictures/videos to people. The app part could be appealing if it does something more amazing than I can do now with a 360.

So there you have it. I'm not so much asking to be talked into it, I just want to be sure I'm not missing some feature that make the annoyance of daisy-chaining my 360 worth it. I could see my wife saying "okay you just dropped $500 and we're still watching TV through our 360, you're in trouble go wash the dishes". I want one because it looks so cool and "I want to believe", but should I just wait and see? I'm interested to see opinions from other people in a similar camp, their rationales, or other uses I've yet to discover that may restore my interest, etc.

 

[unstoppablekem]

If the Xbox one doesn't fit your needs, I suggest to keep the 360. I really like the Xbox one though.

 

[oldpueblo]

If the Xbox one doesn't fit your needs, I suggest to keep the 360. I really like the Xbox one though.

Could you maybe flesh that out with at least a paragraph? I mean that's 0 help bro.

 

[Coreldan]

I suggest you wait out a bit longer that we learn more about the "media extender" features. We know it won't have it as it was in 360, but I feel that there will be something similar.

But I wouldn't hold my breath to get the same functionality as you get from your 360s at this time.

As a bandaid fix, you could just keep the 360s as media extenders and have them come as HDMI-passthrough to the Xbox One. This way you get the best of both worlds while perhaps hoping that you can replace the 360s for good one day with just the Xbox One. But like you mentioned, this will make you wash dishes, so perhaps I would wait and see the details that will inevitably start coming soon.

 

[spyderzWPC]

I know they say xbox wont act as a media center but if you have a windows 8 device in your house it is really easy to send a movie or music to an xbox product.

family wise, you will need to pay for 1 xbox live gold account for your xbox one and all users on it will have xbox live gold features attached to their account.

I think using the Kinect with the tv as you described will prove to much more user friendly from what I have seen on video reviews of the xbox the whole xbox one tv schedule looks amazing I would seriously look into that.

Hope that helps, I ordered a day one edition I have no problems answering questions when it gets here next fri.

 

[berty6294]

I'm doing midnight release so ill beat you too it!!! lol

 

[oldpueblo]

Thanks to several of you, a good point has been brought up. It happens every so often that our Xbox 360 will think it heard one of us give a voice command and it will bring up the voice menu, sometimes even going as far as backing us out of what we were doing when my wife said "back" several times unrelated to the Xbox. The new refined kinect voice navigation might actually be a huge thing to look forward to and might just make it worth it, I'll have to look more into what all it does. Being able to say a channel would be nice, but how well will that work with media center and not a cable box? It seems to me IR blasting is used for that, but can you IR blast a 360?

 

[Keith Wallace]

I think they might be retiring Media Center slowly or something. They have cut it out from Windows 8, and it's a separate purchase altogether (unless you were an early Windows 8 adopter and got it as a free download). I doubt they'll have NO streaming solution whatsoever, but it's hard to figure out what is possible without a console in our hands to find out.

Also, I'm a bit concerned about the profile-switching. How smart is this Kinect, REALLY? If I'm playing a game, and some jackwagon relative comes in and says "show my stuff," is it going to kick me out?

 

[ncxcstud]

I think they might be retiring Media Center slowly or something. They have cut it out from Windows 8, and it's a separate purchase altogether (unless you were an early Windows 8 adopter and got it as a free download). I doubt they'll have NO streaming solution whatsoever, but it's hard to figure out what is possible without a console in our hands to find out.

Also, I'm a bit concerned about the profile-switching. How smart is this Kinect, REALLY? If I'm playing a game, and some jackwagon relative comes in and says "show my stuff," is it going to kick me out?

Oh, you mean like this?

Xbox One Jennifer 30 US TV Commercial - YouTube

 

[oldpueblo]

Oh, you mean like this?

Xbox One Jennifer 30 US TV Commercial - YouTube

Truth is anyone can just walk up and hit the power button or pick up another controller and kick you to the home screen, so that's no different really. If they're a ****, no Xbox feature can fix that. And technically it will pause your game so nothing lost really.

 

[tk-093]

Yeah, once somebody comes in and uses their voice to mess with my XB1, that'll be the last time because I will nuke their account.

 

[tk-093]

It seems to me IR blasting is used for that, but can you IR blast a 360?

You should be able to IR Blast your 360.. I have a universal remote that controls my XBox.

 

[Microsoftjunkie]

Couldn't you hook your PC via hdmi to tv and tv to Xbox one. All you would need is a dedicated wireless keyboard. So you could leave media center on and seamlessly switch using Xbox one.

 

[Coreldan]

Couldn't you hook your PC via hdmi to tv and tv to Xbox one. All you would need is a dedicated wireless keyboard. So you could leave media center on and seamlessly switch using Xbox one.

Why not just directly PC to Xbox to TV?

 

[Keith Wallace]

Truth is anyone can just walk up and hit the power button or pick up another controller and kick you to the home screen, so that's no different really. If they're a ****, no Xbox feature can fix that. And technically it will pause your game so nothing lost really.

Except you don't leave random controller lying around and turned on. The Kinect is always on, waiting to ruin your day. Also, WILL it suspend your game if thing Jennifer clown comes in and interrupts you, then starts her own game?

 

[ItsMcDiddles]

I'll get one later next year cause the price point is just ridiculous.

 

[ImmortalWarrior]

I feel it prudent to note that, while it's unfortunate that they are currently discontinuing media center support, it's not for lack of trying. Microsoft was fighting an uphill battle against the cable providers who wanted to keep control. Yes the FCC has mandated certain cablecard support, but they always face resistance from cable companies who do not wish to relinquish control.

For example, in Canada, there is no cable company that allows decoding of their cable signal via cable card. The open channels, sure, but no HD digital at all.

Microsoft battles this issue, but made no headway for years. Media center is what, ten years old now? No progress has been made with it because the laws support the cable companies.

I think the HDMI pass through is a great transition idea. It allows the cable companies to keep selling you cable boxes while encouraging them to take advantage of a digital app solution. Sure, it's not perfect, but it's the best MS can do with the resistance they get from the likes of Comcast and Rogers.

 

[unstoppablekem]

I'm doing midnight release so ill beat you too it!!! lol

Same!

 

[Coreldan]

Except you don't leave random controller lying around and turned on. The Kinect is always on, waiting to ruin your day. Also, WILL it suspend your game if thing Jennifer clown comes in and interrupts you, then starts her own game?

They did say that you could play another game while waiting a multiplayer game to come ready on another.. but I guess there could be technically another way to be queueing for a game while not actually IN the game, thus not actually having 2 games run at the same time..

 

[Microsoftjunkie]

Why not just directly PC to Xbox to TV?

Does X1 have more than one hdmi or allows input/output from two video sources. I thought the hdmi worked simultaneously for input/out.