I’m going to guess that a fair few of you picked up an Xbox One at launch. You’ve heard what I think, now I want to know what you think?
Also — I’m keen to hear what games you guys and girls got with your launch console — are you enjoying them? Consider this your chance to rant about any and all things Xbox One.
It seems to be one of those ‘time will tell’ things. I think the Xbox One has a decent amount of launch titles — especially if you add the cross-gen platform games (Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag looks great on PS4 and Xbox One). I’m really not a fan of the console’s design, but I can live with that.
And I think most of you know where I stand on Kinect! It just doesn’t work consistently enough, and it’s not good in games as far as I’m concerned.
Okay that’s enough from me. What are your thoughts on the Xbox One? Let us know in the comments below.
Comments
68 responses to “Community Review: The Xbox One”
JUST posted this in TAY so I’ll go ahead and copy/paste here.
Really like the Xbone. The interface takes some getting used to, but now that I’m getting used to it I like it. Not a big fan of install times but oh well. I suppose there’s a point where it’s just necessary. Forza 5 got most of my attention over the weekend and likely will until my wife is several hours ahead of me in Dead Rising 3 so I don’t spoiler her.
On the upside, Forza 5 is great. I can see why people are complaining about it being “microtransaction-y” because yeah, it has a lot of little prompts to get you to use tokens, and holds some nice cars out of reach until you pay extra for the DLC (which you then still have to buy with in-game credits before you can use?) but I don’t get the “grindy” complaints. You’re playing a game about racing. You earn credits by racing and you use them to buy more cars. I’m not sure what people expected. What is the complaint here? That you have to do races to do more races? Welcome to every racing game ever, guys.
I like the driveatar, and I think it works well. I have something like 21% sync on mine and it’s been appearing in my wife’s races. Watching her chase it is immensely satisfying, and I can see my driving habits in it, see it make critical mistakes I would make, take lines I would take, etc.
Battlefield 4 looks great, and I am trying very hard to get over my frustration at online multiplayer in general to enjoy it.
I don’t like FIFA but I will give it more of a try. I think my mistake was doing the skill minigames and treating them like basic how-to tutorials, when really they are designed for more experienced players to refine their skills. I think if I just start doing some games I will enjoy it more.
We picked up Just Dance 2014 for something fitnessy/active to do. We were going to wait for Dance Central 4 but I don’t know if that will ever actually happen so Just Dance will tide us over. I haven’t tried it yet but I look forward to it.
On that note, I also tried out Xbox Fitness and my abs are still aching after a 10 minute core workout late on Friday. Looking forward to getting a lot more use out of this in the future.
tl;dr: xbone is good stuff and I am glad I got it at launch.
What did you do in the Xbox Fitness app?
There was a free (with gold subscription) 10-minute core workout (leg lifts, crunches etc) that only required an (optional) yoga mat, so I just got down on the carpet. There are others that required dumbells etc. so I’ll come back to those when I find my old set or buy some new ones. It was a pretty fast-paced routine that kept me working the whole ten minutes.
I know 10 minutes doesn’t sound like a lot but I’m not the fittest guy so it was hard work to keep up, and Kinect did a good job of telling me when I was trying to slack off as well. There are full fitness programs you can buy for $30 or so, but for now I’m content with the smattering of trial offerings available.
I hit the gym three times a week and i did that 10 min cardio thing… smashed me!!! Didnt help that i didnt warm up(i thought it was gonna be a doozy) but my legs have been tight as since and that was Saturday!!!
I’m really pissed off by the Forza free-to-play thing.
I would have loved to see at least one game reviewer give the game a sub 25% score and just say “it’s great if you don’t mind being screwed over”.
It’s not that the racing itself is “grindy” it’s that they’ve very intentionally made the cars much more time consuming to acquire than it was before they brought in the token system. The fact that purchasing the special edition (or spending $10 for a premium membership of whatever) earns you twice as much money in every race shows how far they’ve gone towards making life difficult for customers who only pay full retail for the game.
Admittedly I have no basis for comparison as this is my first Forza game (I kept promising myself I’d get Forza 3 and Forza 4 but never did) but I can better appreciate the complaints having read your post below.
That said, the game has still been a pleasure to play and looks wonderful, so I don’t have a lot of complain about.
Previous Forza games rewarded you with a free car at every level, which meant that if you wanted you could eventually play every single singleplayer race without ever having to spend a single credit (you’d eventually get one free vehicle in every class). This freed up credits aquired to buy the cars which you actually really wanted.
The old games also contained a more robust ‘free-mode’ so you could play around with any car in the game on any track you wanted. Of course you wouldn’t be able to paint or modify the cars but you could still use them. That mode now has most of the cars removed forcing you to unlock them through either grinding or paying real money even just for a test drive.
The time taken and cost required to unlock the more expensive cars is also WAY up since they brought in the pay system (I think that was at Forza 3). You’d have to be a complete moron to believe that was by accident. Even if you fork out for a premium membership which ridiculously halves the time taken to unlock vehicles the grind to unlock just one expensive car is ludicrous.
How many people are honestly going to get a chance to drive a $4,000,000+ car when an hours play nets them <$100,000? In previous Forza games cars like that would have been gifts for reaching milestone levels (level 30 or something like that).
I don’t have a problem with developers putting hard to get rewards in their games for die-hard payers who put the hours in, but Microsoft has clearly and intentionally made this game worse for people who have only paid the full-retail price.
You can test all the cars in free mode for free. You just can’t earn XP or credits with them. Lack of non DLC cars and tracks is a bit of a letdown but I usually get the season pass for Forza because it is one of the few games I can play right through till the next comes out.
Pretty sure they only have a limited rental selection in free mode.
Yeah you don’t get access to all the cars. Even split screen multiplayer is limited.
This really shits me. Like when they took the LAN play out of Forza 4 forcing you to have a Gold subscription just to play with a mate when the 2 consoles were in the same room!
If this is the direction MS is going, then the XBOX ONE is not for me.
personally I enjoy the actual gameplay side of the Forza games, so I haven’t found it to be a grind at all. I’ve played a lot of Real Racing 3 which in my opinion involves a LOT of grinding and almost forces you to shell out money in parts, but Forza 5 to me isn’t like that so far. I can see how people who aren’t too into racing games might find the slower pace a bit frustrating, but I’m enjoying the freedom of being able to choose every car that I want to own.
One thing that does frustrate me is that whenever you buy a car it seems to automatically upgrade it and I can’t find a way to turn that off… Anyone figured that out yet?
yeah what’s with that? the way it calculates each car as you scroll through them for the class the event is in, is annoying. and why doesn’t each event tell you what the car requirements are. its clearly an unfinished game (6 gig update!!!) but they know that. if the developers had their way i’m sure forza 5 and killer instinct would’ve been pushed into next year.
microsoft most likely forced them to have them ready for release.
I don’t feel like it was an unfinished game as such. I think they just made a couple of UX / UI design choices that I found a bit weird.
I can see why you would say it’s unfinished due to a lack of content, but at least all of the DLC tracks are free!
Nice little report.
Yeah racing games are generally grindy, and 200 cars is plenty. I’m still against micro transactions, but then I’m against paying $90 for a game that will fall to $20 within a year.
I’ve barely touched FIFA this generation. I used to love soccer games but they’re far too difficult nowadays.
I’m very pleasantly surprised and happy with my xbox one, the whole experience feels great… ps4 has its work cut out for it for me personally this friday when i pick it up
I’m loving the games so far, I got Ryse, great fun and visually stunning, Dead Rising 3, c’mon who doesn’t love mowing down hordes of zombies, Forza 5, what is there to say, It’s Forza, and Killer Instinct: Ultimate Edition with Killer Instinct: Classic, haven’t had a chance to get into those two yet, but I loved KI on the SNES back in the day.
Oh and FIFA 14, which I haven’t downloaded yet.
Love the controller, especially the rumble triggers.
I don’t like the new user interface (dashboard) at all, I’m finding it a lot harder to navigate than the 360.
Edit: I’m absolutely loving the quietness of it.
Overall I think the system is great but needs a lot of tuning. The party system is annoying and the snapping while cool, seems to be more trouble than it worth. How can I get to see what friends are online and what they are playing quickly without disrupting my game?
Ryse – awesome game. All the press jumped on the hate wagon as if it was the hip thing to do. It is a blast.
DR3 – as good as the first 2 but with the added bonus of no timer!
BF4 is still a mess and fifa is fifa to me.
Quick access to friendslist and achievements without interrupting the game definitely needs work. I tried to look at an achievement I got in Forza yesterday and it dropped me out of the game to take me to the achievement menu, while the game ran in the background. I don’t see that as an improvement over popping up the guide menu, frankly. It’s not essential, but it did bother me.
I’m hearing ya! Also why can’t we send voice messages anymore? :S
The party system is definately annoying, having to turn chat on everytime just seems odd, also partying up for games is very strange, took about 30-40min to get DR3 working with a mate Ryse works 80% of the time but other times have to start a new party to get it to work.
Loving Ryse, best game on the system for me so far, the online arena is so much fun with a mate, currently rank 22 I think and about 60% through single player.
Never really liked Dead Rising cos of the timer and loading screens etc, this one seems allot more user friendly havent really played much though think im rank 8?
Battlefield 4 is 10x better than the 360 version, felt like I was playing a PC the first time, its so smooth and love all the particle effects, done the first 2 levels on Veteran and now progress has been lost bit gutted about that wont hit campaign again until they patch it.
Fifa is fifa I got owned in the opening game I have never played a football game before there was no tutorial before that or anything.
I think you can say xbox snap friends feed to get it up the side without disrupting gameplay, but I could be wrong.
I played and finished Dead Rising 3 over the weekend I have mixed feeling over it, I also figured out a way of uninstalling games and add-ons by pressing start on the app icons, I would prefer a storage management UI but if its how Microsoft wants to do it, fine.
Definitely feels like it will hit a gaming drought over the next few months, sorta feels sad I might be unhooking it in a few weeks in lieu of games.
So far pleasantly surprised and disappointed at the same time.
Disappointment comes from missing things and the new system takes some serious time to get used to, but works well once you do. The long wait for Forza 5 to update and install was also disappointing, but that wore off as soon as I was able to play (at about 50% installed – but that was just when I noticed that it said “Ready to Play”, so might have been slightly earlier.
Looks clean and is fairly easy to use and a whole lot quieter than my 360. Think I will like it and if they update the system to make it more complete I will be plenty happy.
FWIW I was watching my Forza 5 install and it said ready to play at 12%. I don’t know how much would have been ready to play since I was content to do other things until it was 100% finished.
Mine said 13% but I might not have noticed it part way through 12%.
I’m enjoying it so far, it does need a lot of work though. Even for a day-one console it’s got some issues.
The OS is terribly underdone, I mean it’s clear as day that they only just managed to get that thing out the door for November 22.
My surround sound doesn’t work (I have that crazy optical format that’s been basically the standard for the past 10 years), it’s really hard to access any of my old music, it can’t run anything off a USB stick, as far as I can tell it’s impossible to play a custom soundtrack
over the top of in-game music (which has been a feature since the original Xbox).
Forza is a great racing game tempered by Microsofts disgustingly greedy use of free-to-play bullshit to ransom full paying gamers into paying extra to actually unlock the content. Cars are intentionally time-consuming to unlock and the free play mode has been intentionally nerfed to hide the cars behind either a long grind or a pay-wall. It’s a pretty grubby way to treat their day one customers.
Also the music SUCKS and the lack of custom soundtrack support really irks me, I’ve ALWAYS enjoyed listening to my own music while I play Forza.
Free FIFA is great.
Battlefield 4 didn’t work for the first 24 hours because it wouldn’t let me log into my EA account (which I f*cking hate, I pay for the XBL ‘walled-garden’ for a reason. Stupid EA). I spent 90 minutes on hold to EA tech support and then gave up. It worked fine when I logged in the next day. The game is impressive and seems cool.
Dead Rising seems fun, I haven’t had enough time to get too stuck in but what I did play was very cool.
The controller is fantastic.
Interesting issue with my wife when she first logged into BF4: she hadn’t logged into her Origin account for awhile so it needed her to update her account with a security question. Unfortunately, the menu to do that wouldn’t let her submit her answer. We had to log in via PC and update her account there, then it worked fine. Very irritating.
My only gripe so far, is the amount of time required to download and install games… I would say I spent about 5-6 hours of the launch day waiting for updates and installs to be done before I could enjoy the games… That was for 4 games, each of which required an update before installing… (smallest 600Mb, biggest 1.1Gb)…
I’m hoping that will decrease in the future as more games come finished on the disc.
I get the impression that a lot of the launch games were designed to be downloaded on day-one rather than come on a disc and because of that they’ve had HUGE downloads to get them working. Forza was a 6gb download or something like that, it’s pretty ridiculous.
Love the UI after getting use to it, still needs some work and few annoying things like partying up and getting into games together, DR3 took about 30min before me and a mate could coop. Love Ryse, I am about halfway through the story and rank 15 in multiplayer, its such a blast in the arena with a friend. BF4 has blown me away, I didnt expect it to look as good as it does, Fifa isnt for me and Killer Instinct does nothing for me either, I turned my location from New Zealand to Australia and now voice commands are working, I like that aspect, easier to bring up snap/party/switch between without having to big X back to dash. Game DVR is weird, getting allot of random crap recorded, but its not too major, no friend notification for them coming online is strange and also Achievements not unlocking if your not connected online, DR3 sometimes says ‘disc is dirty’ so I take it out and put it straight back in and it works.
I’m finding the voice thing SUPER annoying. I have to repeat myself quite a few times, louder and clearer. (and I’m not a mumbler).
That’s one of the reasons that I skipped the setting up Kinect process when I first booted up the system. It’s a video game console, I don’t want to talk to the damn thing!
According to News.com.au “Incredible graphics on Forza 5 bring Prague’s Charles Bridge to life on your PlayStation 4.”
http://www.news.com.au/technology/gaming/sonys-playstation-4-reviewed/story-fnjwmfre-1226767745607
Haha classic.
There’s that world renowned Murdoch owned press accuracy at work.
The console is going to be fantastic, but I’d like them to iron out a thing or two before I officially call it fantastic. My biggest concern is not being able to have music playing in the background during games – either you have to have it snapped to the side during games or not at all. Plus, I’m limited to using Xbox Music anyway, because there’s no support for USB drives and MP3s, or ripping from CDs, as of yet.
Really, the only other thing I’d complain about is the fact that I have no idea how much space is left on my hard drive. That, and no streaming with Twitch, though I’m not too fussed about that.
But I am LOVING the games right now. Forza 5 is fantastic; Ryse is stunning and seems to harken back to older one-note games, which I like, and Killer Instinct – even with one character – is pretty satisfying to play, especially when the announcer yells C-C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!!!
So, yeah. Loving it so far, but it can be even better.
You can send your own music to the xbox music app by using PlayTo on your PC or phone. I’m hoping full DLNA support isn’t too far away though.
At the very leaste i can stream my own music to it now, but I still have to have the app open or snapped, instead of simply playing in the background. Kind of sucks.
Love the controller, can’t fault it so far. Forza 5 is superb despite all the whingers. Dead Rising is fun as expected, couldn’t get coop to work though.
Ryse has probably been the highlight so far though. Looks incredible, great story/cutscenes/voiceacting and plays well too. Glad I read the reviews as I never intended on picking it up.
My main gripe is the interface. Very confusing. Also I tried to edit a clip in upload studio and it told me I had to plug in Kinect…not sure why that is required but I’m hoping it changes.
All in all I bought my xbone for games and in that respect I am completely happy.
was 3rd in line at 8am on Friday morning and 72 hours and 2 faulty consoles later i was able to play my first game… *slow clap*
I really doubt any reviews can be trusted here. The people who paid $599 for this console will not complain about it, but rather try justify their purchase by reading the good comments and feeling better about yourself.
And the guy who DIDN’T pay $599 would be justifying his non purchase by saying how crappy it was.
It works both ways!
Yeah this is a good point. And it’s good that people are enjoying it.
I was wondering why no one’s mentioned the hard drive space as yet – I can imagine 500gb getting filled very quickly – and the fact that the hard drive is non swappable (for the amateur at least) could be a major problem.
At the same time, I hope both MS and Sony open up the doors to external storage. If we can install on external drives (as you can with the Wii U?) that would be a big problem solved.
Personally I’ll likely be waiting to buy the PS4 once I’ve played more PS3 games, once the hard drive size increases, and once the first wave of games drop to around $20.
I’m not making the mistake of buying dozens of games for $40 to $60 and then not playing them for years. Learned my lesson this gen.
External storage was announced by M$oft several months back, then about a month before launch they told us that it was still coming, but not at launch. That is full external storage, usable exactly the same way the internal is used (installing full games etc).
oh that’s cool. I really hope sony do the same
Sony acutally went the other route and allow the internal hdd to be swapped for a bigger (even SSHD and SSD) one. Still no confirmed word one way or the other about external storage though.
Upgradeable internal is good, but it’s still a big hassle. And who knows when a 2tb 2.5″” will be well priced.
External on the other hand is already dirt cheap.
If we know we can stick in a 4tb 3.5″ whenever we feel like it storage won’t ever be a problem.
Yeah, ive got a seagate 2tb just waiting for the os update that allows it for the X1. Will do a swap to the 2tb ssd when I get a ps4 (waiting on a price drop and at least 2 must have exclusives).
You would want to make sure you use a USB3 drive though so you don’t see significant slowdowns.
Well, sure – the same way you should read every Amazon review with a bit of scepticism. But it’s still nice to hear about people’s experiences – and not everybody’s brain is dominated by cognitive biases.
Controller is fantastic. Really enjoyed the time I spent playing Forza 5, FIFA & KI. Haven’t got around to DR3 & AC4 yet, but installed them anyway.
The ease of switching between apps and games just screams for Digital Downloaded games – but while AC4 is $66 at Big W or $100 on Xbox Marketplace – it like like I’ll be sticking to discs for now. One of the true benefits of their original DRM plan, was that my $66 AC4, would have also been a downloaded title, and there would have been a multitude of pricing options through different retailers. Oh well.
Yeah I was finally excited that they decided to get rid of discs and then BOOM. Your point also points out what I have been going on about for ages too.. they left in the retail sector and this would have ensured competition etc was still there. I don’t want a download only model with a monopoly supplier but with a relatively open marketplace and international purchases still possible.. I was really happy. I am still optimistic that they introduce some sort of opt in policy to allow for discless gaming.. no idea how but as much as I didn’t want online always, I REALLY wanted to finally get rid of discs.
I’m the same. I tend to prefer to pay the premium to buy through the marketplace just for the convenience of not having to swap discs. I might have to go back to discs soon because I’m moving out and won’t have as much of a download limit, so the old online only system actually would have worked well for me… I find that once I take a disc out of the console I’m much less likely to play that game again as opposed to if I can just choose it from the dashboard…
Check whirlpool, I posted how to buy games at US prices with your AU account via PayPal, no credit card required. Save you a good $20-$30 per game minimum.
The rumbling triggers is such a small feature that I find absolutely and amazingly brilliant. Been playing NBA2K14 and the left trigger rumbles when I dribble the ball with my left hand and changes to the right when I switch hands. Such a small feature but I am really impressed with it – as with it’s integration in Forza.
Onto Forza – $70 (I think) for season pass? No thanks. I struggled to find the car restrictions for events so spent money on upgrades I couldn’t use, I don’t like the menu system as it is to convoluted – I thought Forza 4 finally got it right, now they basically went back to Forza 3.
Controller – is it just me or are the thumbsticks smaller, (surface area smaller)? I was playing COD and having played it on my 360 the day before, the new One thumbsticks took some getting used to.
OS has been a fairly large learning curve – they should have put a manual or Kinect commands cheat sheet in the box. 1 example: you go to My Game and Apps – click on the Store section – doesn’t take you to the store, but the games I already have. I know there is aStore section on the home screen, still shitty way to do it.
I find the command “xbox select” really helpful in showing me what the right commands are for each screen.
OK, will try tonight after work, thanks.
as far as Forza upgrades go, I’ve found that whatever class it auto upgrades you to at the start of a championship is the class restriction for that championship. Personally, I hate the auto upgrade system so I find myself buying the car and then resetting the upgrade and upgrading manually, but that’s the way I figure out the class restrictions.
Admittedly I agree that the menu and presentation of Forza 5 is a step backward, but the physics, control, graphics and Drivatars make up for it for me.
NBA 2K14 looks great and gameplay is good on Xbone…shame about the shitty menu system and dodgy servers first few days.
CoD Ghosts – extinction mode is really the highlight here. Will keep me entertained for a while so long as they bring out new maps (ideally free…bastards.)
Fifa 14 – great fun so far and skill games are a blast, albeit quite tricky…Seasons mode online is cool. Can’t really say anything bad about it as I’m not all that familiar with past editions.
Controller – the bumper buttons are an annoyance. They’ve taken a step back in my opinion. Rumble triggers are good when used effectively. Also, kinda just wish the start button was the start button at times. For instance, times where you would press A to lock something in, now would advance to the next screen or game (ie selecting a team on NBA 2K14.)
Dashboard – love how game runs in the background. Love it. Hate how fucking hard it is to look at simple things such as your friends list and party. Really needs a quick fix. Also, I need to check it further tonight, but looks like you can’t create a profile without a Microsoft account (which isn’t a guest.) If this is the case, I’m really pissed off with that.
Kinect – I imagine the most use I’ll get out of it is scanning QR codes…at least for the forseeable future.
Turtle Beach Earforce XO Seven launch Headset – I DON’T KNOW BECAUSE IT WON’T BE ARRIVING UNTIL NEXT YEAR – AT BEST MID DECEMBER.
Day One Edition controller is cool. 🙂
I ripped up the achievement and didn’t even use it! Ha! Just kidding, I put it on eBay.
Not! I used it and it felt great. Major troll face right now.
create a pin for friends and party, I have created pins for everything cos its a nightmare to find it when you want it, either that or use the voice, Xbox go to friends or xbox snap party.
Personally i am surprised by how responsive Kinect has been for me. I can count on my fingers so far the amount of times i have had to repeat myself because it either misunderstood me or didn’t hear me. I have been just a tad slower in how i speak normally when i do give the commands and i seem to get the most success when i say Xbox… (Menu Appears) Go To… Forza MotorSport 5. There is only a 1 second more then normal gap between the Xbox and Go To commands but it seems to make the Kinect that much more responsive.
Would like to go into detail about the games i have but i am having a blast with Forza 5, FIFA which came bundled is ok but sports games were never my cup of tea and despite the generally unfavourable reviews i am enjoying the SP and Co-Op of Ryse.
I do really like the new system takes a few hours to really set up the system the way you want it . Mainly that time is spent navigating the new system . Pins work better then ever great little and easy to use feature . But the lack of USB and dlna support for launch is not great . The game installs are long but if u have downloaded and games you can play that while u wait . A nice little feature is being able to play the game mid install that’s a great feature . Party chat is pretty good but still needs some work. The controller is a step up from its 360 brother. Kinect really needs some work as well work only 75 percent of the time
Great console. Interface is good, controller is near perfect, grafics are fantastic, everything is simple to use. Only problem is some of the apps a buggy but I’m sure they will fix it up. All in all, really happy I bought it.
Positives=
Voice commands, multitasking.. you miss it when it’s gone…Voice commands work if you’re not an idiot.
Controller
Apps
Kinect works wonders
Negatives=
Can’t snap YouTube
Every game seems rushed, AC4 BF4 and Forza are the games I’ve played.
UI has a learning curve.
Controller has lack of tension in sticks, takes some getting used to if you didn’t play ps3.
Overall= worth the purchase..once the hiccups are gone it’ll be amazing
What is really bugging me about this console is the xbox logo, white on black, high contrast, on the home screen. In less than an hour, it had burnt into my 2 month old Samsung plasma, with all the screen burn prevention turned on. My old ps3 has run hundreds of hours on the same screen, with no issues. If I could get rid of the icon or change the background colour, Im sure it would not be an issue, but an omnipresent high contrast icon is not a good idea. I’ve reached out to Microsoft, but amazingly they are ignoring my tweets.
The Good:
– Voice commands work well
– Impulse Triggers on the controller are good
– The box itself is whisper quiet, runs cool and overall is a very sexy piece of tech
– Multitasking works well most of the time
– The controller is lighter than before and the back of it feels less cramped
– Also has a new d-pad which is very nice and clicky
– Snapping in singleplayer games is handy
– Nice selection of launch exclusives
The Decent:
– Kinect camera works well half of the time, still hit or miss at times in my bedroom setup, every now and then it won’t recognise me and sign me in when I turn it on
The Bad:
– No Kinect TV mounts available. I know this has nothing to do with MS but keep this in mind if you get an XBOne and have to mount it on the TV.
– Bumper buttons (LB/RB) on the controller suck, have to be pressed with the middle of your index finger now which is uncomfortable
– The party system is an atrocity, party chat is broken
– Snapping while playing online makes the system chug
– You cannot view your friends list or send messages when you’re in an online game- it will switch from the game to the Friends app, thereby kicking you from whatever match you were in. Compare this to XB360 where this was done easily with the Xbox button overlay
– Can’t send voice messages anymore
– No DRM. Coming from someone who detested the Xbox One’s DRM, I understand what MS were getting at- installing games from your discs and then switching seamlessly between them, no discs required. Hopefully MS brings this back because after using the XBO I now realize how good an idea it was. If only they didn’t horribly miscommunicate it.
All in all, a fantastic console, blew me away when a few months ago I absolutely hated the thing, great exclusives at launch, plenty of small improvements that add up, but it’s so disappointing that Party Chat- arguably MS’s strongest feature- is such an unusable, broken mess at the moment. Hopefully MS fixes it before Titanfall and Destiny hit.
I bought a $15 tripod today and set it up behind my TV, since nobody is selling a Kinect TV mount yet. Find the Kinect works much better up higher on the TV than it did sitting on the cabinet below it.
I am loving it, Kinect works well with recognition sign in. Voice commands work great, especially seeing as I can’t remember how to drop items in DR3 so just say “Drop Current Item”.
Forza is awesome, working my way through the race categories, going to be a pain only driving Toyota produced cars though haha
The games are great, the console is super fast to load ANYTHING, the ‘Snap’ feature works faster than my gaming rig does to pop a window and close a game, Kinect actually works now, the controller is amazing, graphics are great, servers produce ZERO lag (for me), the DVR and Upload Studio are pretty amazing, and the Guide is easy to access.
The only problems I’ve found is that sometimes the Party system will glitch, but you can just transfer it to Skype, which is super clear anyway.
I suggest getting the console – if not for any of the many great features – to see for yourself how amazing BF4, RYSE and Forza look, and to have a lot of fun in DR3. Oh, and *cough* *cough* Titanfall/ Halo 5 *cough* *cough*.