Xbox One Records Last Five Minutes of Gameplay… Yay or Nay?

Here’s the latest scoop on the Xbox One: it will record and save only the last five minutes of gameplay, which you can then use to mess around and mod before you share it with your friends on Facebook, Twitter and Xbox Live.

So what happens the rest of the time you’re playing? Well, according to Microsoft Game Studies creative director Ken Lobb, there’s something called “Project Upload” with the Xbox One. He describes it as the Xbox constantly recording as you play, and storing the last five minutes of gameplay on your hard drive. But if you’re playing online and can’t pause the game, but want to capture something awesome you’re about to do, you just say, “Xbox, record that.” A built in DVR? Not bad. 

The only problem is that if you’re not playing online, it only records the last five minutes of a battle of combo. So if you did something super awesome in the middle of a game, it won’t catch it. Or at least that’s how I understand it. My questions are: “When do the five minutes start and stop? At a save point? After a cut scene? Before or after a boss battle?”

Lobb says,

“[If] that thing you just did is within the last five minutes, you can go into that last five minutes and scrub it for the best stuff – I want that four seconds and this ten seconds and this 30 seconds and then I want that ultra combo.”

At least you can do a voiceover for your mini video. Meh.