Xbox One review

What is it?
Microsoft's weapon in the eighth-generation console battle, the Xbox One is an all-in-one box of tricks that wants pride of place in your living room.

What’s great?
Instantaneous switching between games, apps and live TV and the best voice integration on any tech product we’ve ever used.

What’s not?
The design is big and bulky and hardcore gamers (and spec-sheet fanatics) may be disappointed that some games aren’t turned up to 11....yet.

The bottom line:
Microsoft has bet big on the Xbox One. Sure, it’s somewhat pricey but the tech giant will be hopeful that its new baby has enough bells and whistles on it to persuade even the biggest doubters to come aboard.

Xbox One: Review

It’s finally here. Along with its rival from the East, the Xbox One represents the future of gaming. If the last generation is anything to go by, we can expect to see both the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 dominating the games landscape for at least the next seven years.

Or can we? In the years that have passed since the Xbox One’s predecessor, the Xbox 360, was launched in 2005, technology has moved on leaps and bounds. People now carry around mobile computers with them wherever they go in the form of smartphones and tablets; mobile computers that offer a wealth of great gaming and digital content on demand and wherever they are. And when people get home, they can fire up their internet-powered smart TVs, connected to their Wi-Fi-enabled set top boxes, and tune into pretty much any television show or movie they choose.

So, is there room for a dedicated games console in people’s lives in 2013? Probably not. And that’s exactly the thinking behind the Xbox One.

Xbox One: All-in-one system

The Xbox One isn’t a games console. To call it that does it a massive injustice. In fact, calling the Xbox 360 - on its ninth year (and the PS3, for that matter) - a games console is an injustice to the multitude of multimedia apps and services on offer.

But the Xbox One takes those multimedia features one step further. On the back of the new console, you’ll find not one but two HDMI ports - one for hooking up to your TV, as per the 360, and one for connecting to your existing set top box. This HDMI-input port wants your live TV feed straight in. The idea is that you’ll have your TV service running through your Xbox One at all times so you can switch between live TV and gaming (or other apps) in an instant. In fact, you can even run both together. We had no issues playing a bit of Zoo Tycoon while at the same time watching Sky Sports News. It certainly passed the time during the less interesting stories.

The live TV picture on your Xbox - whether windowed on the dashboard, minimised in Snap mode, or full screen - is exactly the same as if it was running through your telly as per normal. The Xbox One is simply a conduit for your current set top box’s HDMI output – EPG and all.

In the States, the Xbox One launches with an enhanced TV experience embedded into the system’s OneGuide. OneGuide is like an EPG of your live TV, the TV and movie content in your apps and even the photos and videos in your SkyDrive folders. From here, you’ll be able to do detailed searches with metadata including actor info, genres and so on.

The live TV-to-game switch really is as instantaneous as you’ve no doubt seen in the demo videos. We’ll talk more about voice control later but simply telling your Xbox to watch TV is as easy as it sounds. Your game will pause and you’ll be able to pick it up from the exact point you left it as soon as you’re done watching telly - and in an instant too. It really is quite brilliant.

As well as live TV, there's a range of streaming and on-demand apps including: Netflix, Amazon's Lovefilm, Blinkbox, Crackle, Eurosport, Machinima, Muzu TV, Sky's Now TV, Ted, Twitch and Wuaki.tv.

You can also play Blu-ray discs and audio CDs (through dedicated apps) – although MP3s are not supported - and you’ll find the Xbox Video and Xbox Music apps on board, both of which have had a nice spit and polish from the new UI.

Xbox One: Build and design

Let’s get this out of the way early on – the Xbox One is big. Very big. Comparisons to VHS machines from the 1990s aren’t too far wide of the mark and, yes, it’s substantially more chunky than the PlayStation 4. Its actual dimensions are 33.3cm x 27.4cm x 7.9cm. Weighing in at almost 3.2kg, it’s actually 10 per cent bigger than the original Xbox that went on sale back in 2001.

But, and it’s totally your right to disagree with us on this point, does that really matter? It’s not all that much bigger than a Sky or Virgin Media set top box and the chances are that it will sit under your TV, fitting inside whatever cabinet or stand you’ve already got set up, where it will stay until you unplug it and swap it for the new Xbox in 2021.

And it’s not ugly. Not in our opinion anyway. It’s a classic, minimal design that should survive the test of time. Its two-tone matte and gloss liquid black form looks great and the soft power button (white, not green) oozes a certain coolness.

It is very grill-heavy though, with half of the top side and the bottom half of the edges all containing vents for the engine room’s hot air to escape.

Xbox One: Cloud power

And plenty of hot air there is too with an x86 eight-core AMD system-on-a-chip processor on board that is eight times more powerful than the Xbox 360. Owners of the Xbox 360 will be delighted to hear, however, that the Xbox One is much quieter than their current console. We’ve had ours working overtime testing out the features for this review and can confirm it’s as quiet as a mouse in moccasins with self-image issues.

That processor is a 64-bit x86 Jaguar AMD CPU running at 1.6GHz backed up by 8GB of DDR3 RAM. There's also 32MB of ESRAM and a GPU believed to be equivalent to a Radeon HD 7790 graphics card. As well as that cutting-edge CPU and GPU combo, the Xbox One also packs a 500GB hard drive, a Blu-ray optical-drive, USB 3.0 connectivity (three ports) and dual-band Wi-Fi.  There’s also Gigabit Ethernet for wired networking and flash cache memory on the SoC.

Unlike the Xbox 360, where you could manage your digital storage, there is no such option on the Xbox One. That’s because the new console sticks a lot of info up into the cloud and sorts the rest out for you. If you do fill up your hard drive, you’ll be prompted to uninstall a game or two – although you’ll not lose your saved progress.

The Xbox One is actually built on three separate operating systems – a first of its kind. One OS, based on the original Xbox OS, runs the games and will not be affected by Skype calls, social messages, music streaming and the like. That OS is backed up by a platform based on Windows 8 – a “web-orientated OS” – that is in charge of all the non-gaming experiences. The third OS is a system that manages the other two, making sure they play nicely and providing a seamless experience for the user.

All this results in a system that runs superbly. There’s no lag and the speed in which apps and games switch around (or even play together in Snap mode) is phenomenal.

Xbox One: Modern UI

Fire the Xbox One up and you’ll see that the UI falls in line with Microsoft’s Modern UI order. Basically, it looks like a Windows 8 PC or a Windows Phone handset. That’s not a bad thing, however, as it’s easy to get to grips with.

The main homescreen shows your last used apps, your social info and features a big window showing whatever you were running last (you can watch live TV in this window if you want). Swipe left and you’ll see the apps and games you’ve pinned to the homescreen and swipe right to see curated store fronts for games, apps, videos and music. You can personalise the colour scheme, as per Windows 8, and you can open menus on specific tiles using the menu button on the control pad.

The UI isn’t exactly stretching the boundaries of innovation – it simply extends an already familiar setup to a new device.

Xbox One: The games

We’re a long way in and we haven’t really talked games yet. There’s a reason for that – you can read previews and reviews of Xbox One titles on MSN Gaming. This is a review of a new piece of kit.

However, it’s impossible to talk Xbox without talking games at all. The good news is that there are some real peaches in the launch title line-up. Dead Rising, Ryse: Son of Rome and Forza 5 are all huge exclusives for the platform and third party blockbusters such as FIFA 14, Assassin’s Creed IV, Call of Duty: Ghosts and Battlefield 4 are all available from launch. There are also massive titles coming within the first few months of the console’s existence including Watch Dogs, Destiny, Titanfall, Quantum Break and D4.

Put simply - those concerned that the Xbox One isn’t a gamer’s machine need not be.

There are, however, justified criticisms of some Xbox One games already. For example COD: Ghosts plays at a lesser resolution on the XBO than it does on PS4 and Dead Rising 3, a big launch title, has been reported to be dropping below 20 frames per second at 720p (not Full HD).

In our experience, the Xbox One games look fantastic. There’s no doubt that you’re looking at a next-gen machine when you play the blockbuster titles. Whether the PS4’s games look better is debatable but one thing is for sure – Microsoft has opened itself up for comment by not offering every launch title (especially first party ones) in native Full 1080p HD.

Games are installed as soon as you pop a disc in and you can start playing before it’s even complete (the same goes for downloaded games). If you power down your Xbox One overnight and comeback the next day, you’ll find you can pick up games exactly where you left off.

Xbox One: Kinect Mark II

Kinect was our first “wow” moment when we were shown the Xbox One back in April. The new Kinect sensor packs in some incredible new tech – tech that makes the new gesture and voice control options possible as well as, of course, offering game developers a much broader set of game controls.

Your first Kinect experience will be auto-identification when you switch the XBO on. Once registered, as soon as Kinect sees somebody it recognises, it will sign them into their Xbox profile. We had a couple of issues with it not recognising us after the initial setup - we wear glasses in the evening and not during the day and that seemed to throw it. However, there is an ‘I wasn’t recognised’ option to further train the Kinect sensor and we’ve had no problems since.

The new Kinect boasts face, finger and mouth recognition; a 60 per cent wider field of view; Active IR sensors; the ability to identify six different people of all shapes and sizes (in much smaller rooms that previously possible); much improved voice control (based on an array microphone setup and more complex algorithms); and Full HD 1080p video recording for Skype calls.

The suggested placement for the Kinect sensor is at least 2-feet off of the ground and central to your TV. In our house, this doesn’t work. Our TV stand is low and our flat screen TV sits only an inch or so above the surface. The bulky Kinect sensor would be blocking some of the TV if sat in the centre and there's no chance it would balance on the top of our thin telly. Instead, it sits bottom left, on top of the Xbox console – about 1.5-feet off the ground - so far from optimal. However, even in its ‘wrong’ position it seems to work brilliantly.

It’s not all about gesture recognition though. “Xbox on” is something you can get used to saying. The idea is that, rather than a gimmick, voice control can be the primary navigation tool for your Xbox One – making it easier to find and switch between content in an instant.

And easy it is. While not 100 per cent perfect (we estimate an 80-90 per cent recognition ratio of our voice commands), it’s so simple to browser through the Xbox One’s menus and tiles using just your voice. Even browsing on Internet Explorer using voice control is pretty easy. There’s also a voice control tutorial on board to help you get to grips with the commands you’ll be using.

The navigation gestures of Kinect, however, still aren’t brilliant. Sure, they work but grabbing and expanding window sizes or waving through screens still feels pretty weird. And selecting icons just feels laborious – especially when a click on the gamepad or a simple voice command could be used.

However, Kinect gesture controls in games have stepped up a notch. The demo level (that comes free) of Kinect Sports Rivals features incredibly intuitive jet-ski driving (complete with closing fist on the accelerator) and if anyone tells you that interacting with a baby monkey on Zoo Tycoon isn’t a slightly magical experience - they're simply lying or dead inside.

Xbox One: Improved controller

One of the biggest challenges facing the hardware team was redesigning the much-loved Xbox 360 controller. So, rather than reinvention, we have refinement. That refinement means shorter but thinner grips for more ergonomic handling, an integrated battery slot rather than a separate power pack, no exposed screws, a cross-style D-pad and impulse triggers with additional rumble motors.

Charging is now done using micro-USB, so you can even use your smartphone charger if you misplace your Xbox one.

In total, there have been more than 40 technical and design innovations on the new control pad. It feels great - it's not so different to the 360's controller that it'll startle you, but it has enough about it to make you realise you're handling a far more advanced bit of tech.

Xbox One: Xbox Live & DVR

Microsoft has announced a whopping 300,000 dedicated servers for XBL, ensuring there's less connection funny business that can cause you to drop out of a game or experience lag. FPS gamers, rejoice. Xbox Live has seen a massive overhaul. Not only can new challenges be introduced, even for old games, but games should also have improved reputation, match-making and multiplayer features.

On older games with smaller online communities, for example, there will be much more transparency about waiting times for a match – no more waiting around in lobbies, you can get on with watchingtelevision while a match is found (a benefit of the three OS setup).

On the social side, there is a much improved social identity to your Live profile and you’ll not only be able to share gaming achievements, you can also tap into your social community’s entertainment history, likes and trends. Sharing game clips is also possible (and automatic, should you wish). The PVR skills of the Xbox One are cloud-powered and “clever” – meaning your new Xbox will know exactly the sort of game clips you might wish to share with your community.

If you do something your Xbox One deems impressive in a game, then your machine will automatically grab a clip and stick it in your library (you’ll see a notification pop up at the bottom). You can also say ‘Xbox record that’ to grab the last five seconds.

You can also Snap the Xbox Upload Studio: a software package baked into the Xbox which allows you to curate, edit and share your recorded moments that are longer than five seconds. You can also add skins and themes to your ‘Epic moments’ before sharing with your buddies using the cloud.

The clips that are recorded are a maximum of 720p HD at 30fps. We’ve looked at some of ours and, while obviously impressed with our outstanding gameplay, we couldn’t help feeling a bit disappointed by the somewhat juddery and blurry recorded clips. Hopefully, this will improve.

Xbox One: Smartglass

SmartGlass, the second screen experience introduced to the Xbox 360 platform, plays a major part of the new Xbox ecosystem. SmartGlass allows you to flow your media between the big screen and your smaller screen, add gameplay options to Xbox One titles and be a place for you to interact with your social Xbox apps.

The new Smartglass app isn’t available until launch day and our only experience so far of it on Xbox One is through a couple of play-days back in October. Both Madden NFL 25 and Dead Rising make good use of the platform – the former using it as a digital playbook and the latter as a mobile device, complete with phone calls from other characters in the game.

Xbox One: Verdict

The Xbox One is not a five star system….yet. If we use the seventh-gen console lifecycle as an example, we’re looking at least seven years until a sequel for the Xbox One arrives.  And in that time we expect Microsoft’s new baby to evolve into a vastly different commodity to the one it is today. Again - using the previous generation as a basis - the Xbox 360 that sits under your TV now is a different beast to the simple gaming machine that Microsoft unleashed way back in 2005.

And while the Xbox One is far from a simple gaming machine, it’s fair to assume that the bods in Redmond have a few tricks up their sleeve to transform the Xbox One that’s launching in 2013 into a multimedia all-in-one that's suitable for the roaring 20s. The 2020s that is.

That said, we’re not judging our star-rating against what we think a machine suitable for the next decade will be, so it's fair to conclude that the Xbox One isn’t yet the perfect product. It’s a ruddy good product but it’s not perfect.

Without getting too niche and talking about things that may not even bother some users - a perfect games console in 2013 needs to be bashing out Full HD (that’s 1080p) games at a minimum of  30 frames per second. And while the Xbox One is more than capable of this (the company have even stated that 4K gaming could be possible in the future), some games aren’t yet living up to their promise. A lot are but some aren’t. Those are the facts.

Yes, the visuals on games still look pretty incredible - some scenes on Ryse: Son of Rome, for example, are mind blowing (a native 1080p game, by the way) – the bottom line is it isn’t completely living up to its hi-tech-spec billing as of yet.

We’re also slightly annoyed by Microsoft’s decision to backtrack on the disc policy on games bought physically in the shops. We’re not going to get into the much discussed second-hand game and game-lending issues here but what we will say is that it doesn’t feel very next-gen getting up, opening a box and inserting a disc into a machine every time you want to change games. It’s especially frustrating if you’ve arrived at the point of disc insertion with voice commands alone.

We fully expect Microsoft to revert to its original plan for Xbox One games in the next year or so. There’s absolutely no reason why a console needs a disc in place to play an already installed game. And there’s surely a workaround when it comes to game lending and/or selling (transferring licenses in the cloud, for example).

The final reason why the Xbox One isn’t getting full marks in our review is the design. While we’re not going to stick the boot in on the One’s VHS player-like aesthetics (a machine this powerful was always going to leave a large footprint) it’s fair to say that, in a living room where the only thing getting bigger when upgrading should be your TV, the Xbox One is a somewhat of an oddity.

We actually think Microsoft has done a pretty good job with the industrial design of the XBO and, for most people (us included), the size of a black box sitting beneath your TV is largely irrelevant as long as it fits and does its job – but we know the One’s dimensions have caused concern amoung a large contingent of the gaming community, so it’s only right we pay dividend to those annoyances in our verdict. We fully expect a slimmer Xbox One to land within a couple of years anyway.

Negatives aside then and a four-star review is still very much a positive one. It's a verdict that we only give to products that we wholeheartedly recommend. And the Xbox One is no exception to our standard practice. It’s a fantastic games console and it’s an awesome multimedia device.

Is it the first truly all-in-one living room box – one that can fulfil all of your digital demands? Pretty much.

Starting with the gaming side of the console, not only are early Xbox One adopters being treated to a wealth of fantastic launch titles, there are plenty of big-hitting titles due to land in the next few months as well. And those games look fantastic (resolution and frame rate quibbles aside) and feel great thanks to the all-improved Xbox One controller. Heck, even Kinect adds to the gaming fun with a raft of (sometimes unnecessary) voice and gesture controls.

It’s easier and quicker than ever to jump into your games; the online side is hugely improved and much more personal, and switching between games and other apps is super-slick and incredibly impressive.

The multimedia side of the Xbox One is also pretty extraordinary with the TV integration unlike anything we’ve ever seen (or perhaps even imagined) on a games console before.  It’s amazing to be able to go from a game session, to live TV and back to a game session in seconds – and that’s not forgetting that you can watch live TV and play games at the same time using the Snap function.

So, yes, the Xbox One is somewhat a work-in-progress. And, yes, it may be easier for critics to pick up on the more objectionable aspects of this device. But there’s no denying that the Xbox One is a genuine next-gen console complete with some, if not all, of the futuristic bells and whistles that we wished for when bashing away on our worn-out, eight-year-old Xbox 360 control pads.

It’s expensive, we’ll give you that. Expensive when you look back on what games consoles have historically cost in the past and expensive when you compare it to its camera-less, Japanese, eighth-gen rival. But, at $50/€35 more than the cheapest iPad, and at around the same price as a top-end smartphone from HTC, Nokia or Samsung would cost you – is this big box of tricks really all that much? That’s up to you to decide of course, but we’d hazard a guess that you’ll get more use and a longer life out of an Xbox One that you would from a mid-range laptop that would cost the same, if not more