Xbox One Review

[MobileVortex]

 

[Beast of Haeven]

I usually don't like the verge's opinion but they rated the xbox one higher than the ps4...

 

[bilzkh]

By .1 ...NOT 1, not .5, or .3 or .2 ... .1, point one. These guys are on the cusp of being an absolute joke, and I say this sincerely. If you want to dinge Xbox One to the extent of favouring PS4, then come out with it, and defend your claim. I've seen Polygon stray from general gaming media a few times, but they based their views on solid ideas and perceptions, you have to give them credit. If The Verge wants to be different, then do it on substantive grounds, this whole "lets bash and junk" approach is brain damaging, honestly.

 

[Coreldan]

Rated higher on Polygon than the PS4! 8 for Xbox One, 7,5 for PS4!

Xbox One Review | Polygon

Obviously it's not a big gap and I hope nothing bad for the PS4, but the truth is that PS4 has been riding a free positive media wave for just about no real, justified, reason. So I'm just happy when the Xbox One can even slightly even the field by actually rating a tad better.

And in a sarcastic fashion, the Xbox One seems to have less than 0,4% failure rate, seeing that apparently no reviewer got faulty consoles!

 

[Vallos]

Engadget
Microsoft Xbox One review: a fast and powerful work in progress

cnet
http://reviews.cnet.com/microsoft-xbox-one/

 

[Vallos]

IGN has elected to formally review the console a week after the launch, citing that they rather review it with the consoles full services post launch (minus the documented delayed services like twitch). However, they did a 20 minute uncut video walkthrough putting the console through it's paces.

Xbox One Uncut Demo - IGN Video

 

[husslord]

I'm just wanna play good solid video games!! Xbox, playstation, Nintendo,Atari,etc who cares what the system gets rated! Some people seem to be watching too much of the latest south park 2 part episode which is so far epic ah ha!!!!!

 

[michfan]

After six months of "DRM", "PS4 has 50% more power", "Ryse = QTE", "Kinect sucks", "NSA", "RROD part 2", "M$", "720p", etc., it's redemption day for X1. Those who buy at launch are getting a feature rich console that is pumping out the best examples of next gen games so far. Combine that with the promise of X1 hardware being a work in progress that will only get better with time (something I didn't see mentioned in PS4 reviews) and it's a pretty exciting proposition.

 

[Vallos]

I don't necessarily care if any system or product receives high grade or not. However, what I care to know is if these products deliver on it's promises. So far from what I have been reading, the X1 is meeting my expectations... solid implementation of what they are trying to do, with room for improvements.

 

[MobileVortex]

I found rev3game's review to be overly honest, and pretty much exactly what the average consumer will feel. That being said, i got one this morning from amazon and now waiting the 2 days for it to arrive is going to kill me. TRACKING INFO UPDATE =D

 

[theeboredone]

Only thing I would find concerning about The Verge review is this...and I know one of their employees experienced this when he had a MS rep show him the ropes of Kinect.

But Kinect doesn’t always work. It’s simply not reliable or flexible enough. Often, I felt like I spent more time screaming at the Kinect to follow my commands than it would have taken to just pick up the controller. I begged, I pleaded with the device to do what I wanted in the most commanding yet humble tone I could muster, and on many occasions it indeed felt like I had the robotic butler of my dreams. Most of the time, though, it felt like my butler was a little hard of hearing.

There are two distinct ways the Kinect fails, and the first feels inexcusable. Many of the voice commands are extremely rigid, to the point where you need to memorize a list of exact phrases to be able to use them reliably. If you want to go to an app, for instance, you need to start by saying "Xbox go to." But if you want to go to Bing, that structure doesn't work. The correct command is "Xbox Bing," because Microsoft expects you to unquestionably understand and accept that "Bing" should be a verb. If "Xbox on" turns on the console, why doesn't "Xbox off" turn it off? Because "Xbox turn off" is the proper command, and you’ll need to memorize it. If you’re a Redbox Instant subscriber, get used to calling it "Redbox Instant by Verizon," because the Kinect won’t accept anything less. You can't say "Xbox play Forza," you have to say "play Forza Motorsport 5." There are dozens more examples like these.

Hopefully the Kinect commands will get more flexible. Imagine having a robust game library and having to know how each one is properly supposed to be said. Then you got apps like Redbox having you do a plug in for Verizon.

Also, hopefully this can get fixed soon.

But while the ideas are great, the execution just isn’t there. For starters, passing my TiVo through the Xbox One darkened the picture and stripped the signal of its Dolby Digital audio encoding, taking away surround sound. There’s a beta option to transcode Dolby into DTS or PCM audio, but it didn’t seem to work for me, and Microsoft says it might cause additional video distortion with some cable boxes until it’s out of beta. If you have a home theater system, this is an immediate deal breaker; I wouldn’t let the Xbox One near your cable box until it can pass the signal unmolested.

Overall, I'm now rather curious to see how the "average Joe" will take to this learning curve. I feel like it may possibly get frustrating at times and they might give up on these functionalities. People purchase consoles so they don't have to deal with the complexities of PC gaming. The Xbox One seems to be flirting a fine line with all these new features they are throwing in.

 

[Coreldan]

Only thing I would find concerning about The Verge review is this...and I know one of their employees experienced this when he had a MS rep show him the ropes of Kinect.


Hopefully the Kinect commands will get more flexible. Imagine having a robust game library and having to know how each one is properly supposed to be said. Then you got apps like Redbox having you do a plug in for Verizon.

Also, hopefully this can get fixed soon.


Overall, I'm now rather curious to see how the "average Joe" will take to this learning curve. I feel like it may possibly get frustrating at times and they might give up on these functionalities. People purchase consoles so they don't have to deal with the complexities of PC gaming. The Xbox One seems to be flirting a fine line with all these new features they are throwing in.

There are limits how flexible it can go though before it stops working at that end too. I feel many people are expecting a bit too much at times from these things. Sure, "Play Forza" would probably work fine now, but what about when there are 3 different Forza's for Xbox One? I don't think it's too much asked to actually spell out the name of the whole game. I do agree though with the somewhat inconsistant command structures that they could be more unified or made more flexible (for example so that "Xbox, open/show/go to Netflix" could all work, just an example).

I guess as more or less of a ****** I've followed a lot of the Xbox videos and I already know many of the commands by heart (given, when the console actually reaches me, I think it will have finnish voice commands, not sure if I'd use them though over english ones..) and when I was watching some video reviews I was like yelling at my screen "Dude, you're saying the wrong command all the time!". Luckily, most of them seemed to realize that it's not per se the fault of the console but them saying wrong commands, even if they were hoping it could be a bit more flexible.

I think they can easily make it more flexible, but that won't come without it's own issues before it starts picking up stuff from regular speech and start going to wrong places.

 

[theeboredone]

You don't have to say "Play Forza" cause it can get confused from sequels...but how about just "Forza 4" or "Forza 5"? How awesome would it be if you just say "Play Forza" and it filters to all your Forza games, and then you can use your finger or controller to pick whichever one you want?

I am now imagining a frat party with an Xbox One. Everyone is buzzed or tipsy, and they are trying to get Kinect to work. "Xbox Bro, watch ESPN Bro."

Actually, it would be even more hilarious if you could name your Xbox. I'd name him "Bro" and see if Kinect explodes from all the "Bro" being said at a frat party.

 

[wapoz]

Overall I think MS did a good job considering they had to make so many huge, last minute adjustments. The majority of reviews I've seen for it have been very positive, with sites giving it the same or better review that they gave to the PS4. It'll be interesting to see how both consoles develop as MS and Sony push out updates.

 

[Coreldan]

Overall I think MS did a good job considering they had to make so many huge, last minute adjustments. The majority of reviews I've seen for it have been very positive, with sites giving it the same or better review that they gave to the PS4. It'll be interesting to see how both consoles develop as MS and Sony push out updates.

I think Xbox One has a huge future potential too. Just looking where they took 360 eventually was pretty amazing I think. I have great faith in the Xbox team in that regards. While PS4 will probably improve nicely too over time, I think Xbox One was built far more with future in mind. Sure, PS4 hardware is a tad more future proof, but I'm not really worried about that, cos the Xbox One seems to be built for the future in other regards.

@theeboredone, I lolled RL to the "bro"-Kinect thing I suppose there is really nothing stopping from the "Forza 4/5" kinda thing from happening in the future. I think that it might be as easy as giving the game some.. "sub-names". Like the game settings basically having that the game can be identified as "Forza 5" or "Forza Motorsport 5" etc... I don't really see any impossible-to-overcome obstacle to the games being able to understand several different names. It might take a while to come anyways, but shouldnt be impossible. I also expect that one day we get some "tolerance"-slide bar for the Kinect, which allows it to interpret a bit more freely, but it might cause more accidental things or opening wrong things or then make it very low tolerance so that you really have to say the stuff exactly as it is for Kinect to react or then some midway option. Different people would benefit from different settings.

 

[DavidinCT]

​The Xbox One: The Kotaku Review

Koaku's xbox one review..

 

[martinmc78]

Anyone find anything odd about these reviews?

For all the media BS leading up to the launches - PS4 being more powerful, Xbox being just a box of gimmicks - Its surprised me that both consoles received similar scores across the board. Its like they've built up the hype for months then when it comes down to it made both consoles pretty much equal with there own positives and negatives - its like everyone has had enough of the console wars come day one of the releases - A lot of the reviews say don't buy at launch for both consoles and not one has come out and said PS4 is miles better or Xbox one features puts the PS4 to shame.

Im kinda disappointed...

 

[Coreldan]

?€‹The Xbox One: The Kotaku Review

Koaku's xbox one review..

Was probably first one I read. They also gave PS4 a "Not yet", but it was hard to really get how they felt about the device, cos they talked about a lot of the minor annoyances and not that much what they liked about the device outside that. But in many cases that doesn't mean that one couldn't like the device. I've noticed it many times too that the good and working things are too easy to take for granted and focusing on the things that could be improved ends up looking like it's only bad things to say about the device.

I thought their PS4 review was fairly well balanced, but this seemed a bit odd for me for the reasons I mentioned above. That's why I liked fe. Polygons score review, cos at least that still reflects how they felt about the device as a whole, even if they would talk about the things that need improving a lot.

Anyone find anything odd about these reviews?

For all the media BS leading up to the launches - PS4 being more powerful, Xbox being just a box of gimmicks - Its surprised me that both consoles received similar scores across the board. Its like they've built up the hype for months then when it comes down to it made both consoles pretty much equal with there own positives and negatives - its like everyone has had enough of the console wars come day one of the releases - A lot of the reviews say don't buy at launch for both consoles and not one has come out and said PS4 is miles better or Xbox one features puts the PS4 to shame.

Im kinda disappointed...

I guess the difference with the two consoles makes them just that, a bit too different to do direct comparisons. I've said that from the start, by telling people to get what suits THEIR needs the best. Not everyone is gonna give a crap for all the non-gaming stuff on Xbox One, but not everyone is willing to pay 400$ for what is PS3 with more processing power and better controller.

I think the reviews are some sort of a victory for Xbox here. For all the positive hype PS4 got and all the bad press Xbox One got and look at the reviews, both being quite equal with a bit different emphasis on things, hell, Xbox even rating better in several reviews, even if just slightly.

 

[crash1989]

I think XBox One is awesome but it seems that it depends on how the room is and how the acoustics are , this video was too frustrating to watch but I really want to know if this is the case with all XB1s
Xbox One Uncut Demo - YouTube

 

[Coreldan]

I think XBox One is awesome but it seems that it depends on how the room is and how the acoustics are , this video was too frustrating to watch but I really want to know if this is the case with all XB1s
Xbox One Uncut Demo - YouTube

It's good to note that alot of times he is using just wrong commands. One can argue that the Kinect should be more flexible, but it doesn't change the fact that he's trying to make it work with the wrong commands several times. Many times when he fails he didn't really leave the "pause" there between the "Xbox" and the actual command and I would pretty much know it wouldn't work before he even finished talking. Like several sources have also said, you need to sorta get the hang for the voice command thing, I can pretty much bet on many MS employees being able to use the voice commands at very low failure rates cos they've used it for quite a while and now the exact tempo and tone and remember the commands.

At one point he also got a good "flow" on with it, he probably got like 10 commands through with no error, so I'm not really worried, we've seen several people use the Kinect and while not everyone has been that succesful with it right off the bat, we've seen some reliable usage of it too. Just the fact that he seems to remember every second command wrong sorta implies that he doesn't have enough experience with the voice commands yet to make any conclusions of how well this works when you play with it every day for a few months, not to mention years.

Perhaps I'm being too optimistic/******, but I feel that user experience does a whole lot here.