ce n'est pas genève

MICROSOFT x XBOX ONE

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The Xbox One was revealed today after months of speculation and red herring rumours. In a 10AM press conference (oddly held during work hours), Microsoft unveiled the new Xbox, a console boasting "three operating systems in one," its vital stats including 8 Core CPU, 8 GB system memory, 500 GB HDD, Blu-Ray drive, USB 3.0, HDMI In/Out, and 803.11n Wireless with Wi-Fi Direct. I understood maybe 20% of what I just wrote, so for the non-tech nerds, allow me to translate: the Xbox One can switch between TV, music, games, and the internet at the mere sound of your voice. Yup, voice commands or gestures allow you to do basically anything you'd like, including browsing channels (rendering your dusty cable box obsolete) or conducting Skype calls on your TV.

The press conference itself was met with many head-scratches and 140-character complaints. The name  - Xbox One - was criticized as "not making a lick of chronological sense." The design was acknowledged as sleek but some were disappointed that the tablet-controller rumours were proved false. The conference did, however, dispel rumours that Kinect would not come with the system but rather be a $150 tack-on. According to (hilarious) Forbes tech contributor Paul Tassi, if Kinect is part of the packaged deal it gives Microsoft a big leg-up over its competition, namely Sony, who premiered the PS4 a few months back and set the tech-giant bar as a result. 

Some highlights from Tassi's live-blog from the press conference:

1:28 - Half an hour in, now getting to games starting with EA Sports’ and Microsoft’s “special relationship.” FIFA, Madden, NBA Live and UFC coming. Surprise! First look at graphical capabilities ahoy? Nope, just a bunch of interviews with athletes using metaphors to describe the new EA Sports engine.

1:33 - I think Twitter might be setting a new record for complaints per minute during this press conference. 

1:48 – More sports, more TV interaction, this time with the NFL. I can’t even look at Twitter right now because I fear my monitor will melt from all the molten anger. How many times do we need to talk about fantasy sports pairing in one presentation?

1:51 – Wait, is he wrapping up? There’s no way. The big finale is that Xbox One launches “later this year.” Tepid applause. Stay tuned for E3 for more? Wow, I’m shocked. This is barely going to be an hour long.

1:55 – Call of Duty…with dogs! This feels so disjointed from the rest of the presentation. Which was in itself pretty disjointed. Also, you can slide now, and “fish get out of the way when you get close to them.” We are truly living in the future.

2:01 - Now we get to see actual gameplay footage, which is probably our best bet to see the true graphical capabilities of the Xbox One. It’s good, but nothing I’d call especially mind-blowing from a visual perspective. Perhaps our standards are too high these days.

2:04 – And that was it, with Activision and Call of Duty getting 14 out of 60 minutes of this presentation. The initial TV stuff was cool, but why even bother having this event when SO little was revealed? I thought they’d be able to easily one-up Sony by going second, but they didn’t, not by a long shot. I’ll have a more detailed write-up about this soon. Thanks for tuning in.

Neither Sony nor Microsoft revealed the price of the PS4 nor the Xbox One, respectively, but experts estimate a $400 ballpark range. However, while Sony is expected to clock in at $400, rumours have been circulating that Microsoft will take a gamble on the Xbox One and make it far cheaper than $400: "Microsoft would take a huge loss on the console itself, but nearly everyone and their uncle would buy one, and they'd get their box installed as the cornerstone of a household entertainment system that does far more than play games." Both are expected to reveal the cost at launch at E3 in a few weeks. 

As an interested but inferior layperson in the tech world, I had my eye on the "living room" aspect of things. The all-in-one rivalry between Sony and Microsoft was complicated by the intended target of such a console. Sony opted towards the gamers, saying that "the PS4 is a dedicated game machine" and stating point-blank that they care less about "the living room" than they do about the games, leaving Microsoft a wide-open opportunity to target the average family and not the CoD addict. Though Microsoft did target the gamer niche in today's unveiling, the company can still work E3 to its advantage and exploit the living room-sized hole in the PS4's facade. While some people might want better gaming graphics and smooth controllers, others just want to be able to Skype Grandma and order take-out at the same time.