After 8 full years since the Xbox 360 now Microsoft comes up with a big black box of the size of an old school VCR. Yes it is the Xbox One. It not only now is the entertainment hub in your living room, but also a tough competition for the Sony PlayStation 4.
In this generation of Gaming Consoles interaction with the user is what all the tech giants are working on to make devices more personal and it is also something that hardcore gamers have been in search of. It is the next step in virtual reality where the line (between reality and fantasy ) is getting more and more blurred.
With the new Xbox One comes the new super cool Kinect 2.0, it is the 10 inch wide , 2.6 inch tall device that sits around the device or on the TV and watches you all the time. The Kinect does all the logging in for you as soon as it sees you in the room and takes in voice commands which are accurate 90% of the time.
Hardware:
Under the Xbox One’s hood is an eight-core AMD CPU, 8GB of DDR3 RAM and a GPU clocked at 853 MHz . The console is a bit bulky which I suppose can be compared to a VCR(The huge console size of the Xbox One gives air more room to circulate, which ensures the console does not overheat even when under strain for prolonged periods.). It weighs around 8 pounds(3.5 kg). It also has HDMI , 3 USB Ports (yes 3.0), digital audio out, Ethernet, and the proprietary jack for the Kinect, 802.11n and Wi-Fi Direct, but unfortunately there’s no built-in Bluetooth support. The
Controller:
The Xbox Controller is mostly a matte black gamepad that looks and feels almost identical to the Xbox 360’s gamepad. Instead of the Start and Back buttons, the gamepad has Menu and View buttons that serve the same functions. It still runs on 2 AA Batteries. It also runs with a direct wired connection with a micro- USB port.
Interface:
The Xbox runs an operating system which is virtually similar to any Windows 8 PC. It has a clean tiled Metro interface. It runs almost all the apps from the Windows Store. Netflix and Hulu, Amazon and HBO Go, apps for the NFL and ESPN, all these have been designed for the Xbox One and work pretty fine.
Pricing:
Currently it sells in the US for 500$, can be imported to India for 50,000 Rupees. It is better to wait for it until it is out for sale in India.
Limitations:
Xbox 360 games won’t work on the Xbox One because the underlying technology is different, according to Microsoft .
Overall, Microsoft takes a huge step forward with the Xbox One, offering the same hardware upgrade Sony gave the PlayStation 4 along with many new features like Kinect Voice Controls to complete TV integration. It does everything that Xbox 360 could do in a better way and with a richer performance. The Xbox platform is a dynamic one where in developers could exploit the best of Kinect and take the whole of the gaming and television experience to an point where it seems more real than virtual.
