As we are nearing the launch date of the Xbox One, Microsoft is continuing to push videos of the Xbox One’s features via various communication channels. The latest one was published this Friday and entails a live presentation of most of the Xbox’s functionality. If you were curious in how much value, gimmicks, and creepy stuff the Xbox comes with, you should definitely give it a look.
Marc Whitten and Yusuf Mehdi start by presenting you one of its key features:
Automatically recognizing its users and then presenting them with their custom home screen.
“Xbox – show my stuff!”
Amazing, but also a bit creepy. This takes away the need for passwords, account switching etc.; a useful feature for families and friends. The interesting feature here is that the Xbox can switch between the customized homescreen almost instantaneously. Having grown up with a quite a few siblings, this shows some great potential to annoy the hell out of your brothers and sisters. I wonder how the Xbox will react to new commands while someone else is playing; otherwise, you might have a screaming match between your kids and the Xbox, instead of physically fighting for the remote.
The next feature to be presented is Skype.
The Kinect uses its camera and its motion software to automatically focus on the involved people. Cool, but gone are the days when you could use Skype without having to dress up beforehand. Hopefully, you’ll be able to set the Skype default to “camera off”. Otherwise, I will have to think twice before answering a Skype-Call on my Xbox.
Furthermore, they show off the video recording and editing functionality as well a TV Guide.
Throughout the video, it really becomes clear that the Xbox One is much more than “just a gaming console;” it’s an entertainment center, designed to make life easier and more convenient.
While this is all fine, I really hope the console will fulfill its primary objective, which is to be a gaming console with sweet games and amazing graphics. Otherwise it’s just an expensive and fancy TV remote with a huge webcam.
I urge you to watch the video and make up your own mind. As always, thanks for reading.
