Xbox One Released

Microsoft released the Xbox One today, putting the next-gen console war into full swing. A common theme throughout most of the reviews is that properly evaluating the system is going to take time. Not only are updates for the console continuing to roll out, but the usefulness of some of its technology will depend on what game-makers and other content producers can do with it. Digital Foundry says, "It is willing to make the trades on gaming power in order to potentially revolutionize the way we interact with entertainment in the living room." The Penny Arcade Report calls the hardware and UI a "confusing mess" — until you learn to use it, at which point the hands-free navigation is fast and convenient. Polygon's review is once again visually-oriented, providing a good look at the UI, comparing the controller with the Xbox 360's controller, and giving a demonstration of how Kinect recognizes users. Their conclusion is that while "Kinect isn't a fully realized product yet," "the Xbox One feels like it's from the future." iFixit has a full teardown of the Xbox One, giving it a repairability score of 8/10 (the Kinect sensor gets 6/10). HotHardware has more details about the console's internals, including power consumption and temperature readings. Eurogamer has a compilation of launch coverage, including launch title reviews.

Comments

Re:No real reason to buy until games come out

[stewsters]

At least this generation can play last gen games... Oh wait. Perhaps we can use them as media pc's until games come out... no streaming? Yeah, your right. Wait for games.

If you get one, be aware of potential bricking

[necronom426]

http://www.product-reviews.net/2013/11/22/xbox-one-bricked-after-update-with-e100-error-code/
also
http://www.product-reviews.net/2013/11/22/xbox-one-problems-start-with-disc-read-horror/

Re:AMD

[Narishma]

The only thing we don't know about the CPU is the clock speed at which it runs on the PS4 (it's 1.75 GHz on the Xbox One). Otherwise, it's just 2 quad core Jaguars duct taped together.

Re:No real reason to buy until games come out

[dingen]

Ryse looks pretty good.

Unfortunately, that's exactly all there seems to be to it.

Gamespot: 4 / 10
http://www.gamespot.com/ryse-son-of-rome/
"You are not entertained. Ryse is all sizzle and no steak, a stunning visage paired with a vapid personality."

EuroGamer: 5 / 10
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-11-21-ryse-son-of-rome-review
"There's no brains, no muscle, no fibre beneath Ryse's extravagantly engineered good looks - this game rings loud but hollow."

Polygon: 6 / 10
http://www.polygon.com/2013/11/21/5128888/ryse-son-of-rome-xbox-one-review
"Ryse has all the guts of next-gen — often quite literally — but none of the glory."

Destructoid: 5 / 10
http://www.destructoid.com/review-ryse-son-of-rome-265770.phtml
"An exercise in apathy, neither Solid nor Liquid. Not exactly bad, but not very good either. Just a bit 'meh,' really."

Re:Where was this caution with Wii U?

[tlhIngan]

I have a Wii and I still rage about the lack of HD. Indeed the games are fun and that's why I rage instead of just forgetting about this crap piece of hardware. Good graphics won't turn a bad game into a good game but it certainly make things more enjoyable.
The WiiU is OK though, it may not be able to show scenes as complex as the competition (Xbox one, PS4, PC) but at least, it is not an aliased mess.

And yet, HD on the Wii would've added costs that were completely unnecessary at the time.

Remember, back in 2006/7, HDTVs were pretty much limited to the family room, if the house had an HDTV. Almost certainly the main users of the Wii won't have an HDTV (well, I'm sure there were a few rich families who bought a HDTV for their kids back then).

These days it's inexcusable, but back then HDTVs were at the verge of exploding. In fact, it was so bad that Xbox360 and PS3 games were routinely marked down when they were unplayable on SDTVs - either because details essential to gameplay were too small to be seen (or blurry), or stuff like text is unreadable. And that was because Xbox360 and PS3 supported HDTV and many developers assumed players would be gaming on HDTVs, which wasn't true for a few years yet. The PS3 had it worse as it lacked a scaler chip, so if a TV couldn't handle the resolution it needed, it got downscaled to 480i. (e.g., if your TV didn't support 1080i/p and the game was 1080i/p, instead of going to 720p, it would go to 480i).

Of course these days HDTVs are wildly cheap and 1080p sets are common that even the old set in the basement that's unused is probably an HDTV since the SDTVs ended up scrapped.