Community Review: The Xbox One

We had a Community Review on the PlayStation 4 a while back. Maybe it’s time to do the same with the Xbox One. What are your thoughts on the Xbox One at this point? What do you like about it? What are some of your issues?

I find that it’s difficult to fight back against an initial bad first impression. The Xbox One has improved dramatically in terms of its user interface, but at this point it’s going to be difficult to dislodge the PS4 as my goto device for multi-platform games.

That’s a shame because the Xbox One has really evolved into a console that does a lot of great things. My only issue is that so much of that is buried in the UI.

A couple of months back I went to Microsoft for a guided tour of their UI. I was actually blown away by its media integration, how you can search for different types of content across multiple different services. I was taken step-by-step through these changes, evolutions and I was like, ‘I wish I had known about this quicker’.

But then I went home and tried to find these cool features. I genuinely had a hard time re-finding them.

I think the issue is this: all these good ideas are still being hampered by a UI I personally struggle with. Combine this with my pre-existing notion that the Xbox One UI is ‘bad’ and it makes for a trying experience.

That being said, I think the tail end of 2015 is gonna be a big one for Microsoft, and one that is going to see me spending a lot more time with the console. Halo 5 is a huge one for me, and I really love what they’re doing with indie development. There are just so many cool indie games coming out on the Xbox One.

I’m not a fan of the idea of ‘exclusives’ in general. I think they’re a little anti-consumer. That being said, I am currently only using my Xbox One to play exclusives. So maybe they need a little more of that to help swing favour in their direction.

I dunno.

There’s a lot of things I think the Xbox One does right. I love the way cloud saves work. Skype with Kinect is still a neat little glimpse into the future. It still has the best media/app line-up. I think it’s just a little tricky to change a first impression.


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