57 Things You Must Know About Xbox One – The Console

1.  It’s dead silent.  Honestly.  We’ve sat with it in a faintly terrifying super-max soundproof room in Microsoft’s hardware development lab, and even then we could barely hear it running.  It’s absolutely living-room ready.

2.  It works Offline.  This is the big one; although initially planned to be always-online, Microsoft has now changed it so that you need a single patch to setup the console.  After that, you can stay offline forever.  You will, however, miss out on some of the more interesting features of the console and many of its games – although many online-focused titles, like Watch Dogs, will also work offline.

3.  It won’t play Xbox 360 Games.  Because it’s all-new hardware inside, you can’t play Xbox 360 games on it, and your XBLA titles won’t work either – or at least, not yet.  Microsoft has formally stated taht it is “exploring ways to bring gamers’ favorite content to the new Xbox,” but it has nothing to announce so far.

4. You can connect your Xbox 360 to it.  Xbox One has an HDMI input, which means you can plug in anything with an HDMI output.  It’s supposed to be for attaching satellite or cable boxes, so you can use them with the TV features – but you can also use it to run your Xbox 360 through the console rather than going to the effort of switching the TV input.  Which is a lot of effort, obviously.

5.  All updates install without bothering you.  If you’ve got a permanent internet connection, it’ll dowload and install updates when you aren’t using the console.  No more waiting at startup.

6.  It creates a personalized, ad-free home screen.  An Amazon-esque learning system tracks the games you play, movies you watch and people you talk to, and updates the home screen to show what’s relevant (including the game you last played, of course).  There aren’t any ads on the home screen either, although there will still be ads elsewhere in the interface.

7.  You can watch TV and play games simultaneously.  If you want to.  You can use the Snap function to pin the TV view to the side of the screen while the game gets the rest of it.  Perfect for not letting that all-important episode of Emmerdale conflict with your Dead Rising playthrough.

8.  It gets more powerful thanks to the cloud.  If you are online then Xbox One can tap into the Azure cloud computing platform that Microsoft’s built for all its Office applications.  The company’s said this means you get the equivalent of an extra three processors, which is fudging a bit – because only certain things can risk being squashed down an uncertain quality of internet connection.

9.  It’s got 20 exclusive games – and counting.  The current list of Xbox One exclusives includes: Ryse, Dead Rising 3, Forza 5, Kinect Sports Rivals, Killer Instinct, D4, a new Halo, Below, Quantum Break, Sunset Overdrive, Crimson Dragon, and Black Tusk’s new game.  There’s also Minecraft, Lococycle, Titantall, Plants vs. Zombies Garden Warfare, Project Spark, Zoo Tycoon and Powerstar Golf, wich will come to Xbox 360 as well.

10.  It turns on at the sound of your voice.  Inessential but undeniably space-age: because Xbox one is designed to be in a low-power standby state when not in use, you can just say “Xbox, on” to boot it up.

11.  It’s not region locked.  You can play any game from any country – assuming the game’s publisher hasn’t restricted it.

12.  You can add your own extra hard drive.  The 500GB capacity is generous, but it won’t take long to fill it up.  You can add more space by plugging in and USB hard drive or storage device, either using the slot on the side or the two on the back.

13.  You can (still) create your own custom soundtracks.  Small but important: this has been part of Xbox gaming since the start, ad we’d hate to miss it.  Plus, it’s better now: you can run the music player as a background app and switch instantly between it and the game.

14.  It’ll play Blu-Ray movies as well as DVDs and CDs.  Not a big thing, but a useful one: because there’s a Blu-Ray drive you can play Blu-Rays on it.  Although we’ll probably stick with streaming movies, something the Xbox is already rather good at – because we don’t want any more boxes to dust.

 

Source: Official Xbox Magazine, Xbox One Special Edition

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