Xbox One: Microsoft's All-In-One Home Entertainment System

Most of the comments here focus on Microsoft, Sony, and gamers; I'd like to (indirectly) bring the traditional cable co into the discussion.<p>Last semester several Comcast reps gave my class a presentation which included a summary of their media strategy, a demo of their new cable TV platform/cable box, and a Q&#38;A section. Their new cable box (a small, black, ATV-like 'dumb' set-top box) is progressive: it has a modern UI, connects to the Xfinity cloud platform, and can be updated through software rather than hardware changes.<p>However, one student asked their VP of Media Acquisition a simple question: "Who is your biggest competitor?" His answer shocked us.<p>"Microsoft."<p>At the time (~March), he told us Comcast expected Microsoft to stage a coup to claim "input A," the consumer's primary content interface. Traditionally, consumers would have their cable boxes plugged into input A and their gaming consoles plugged into input B. Microsoft, he said, would attempt to take over input A by including a cable jack in the back of the Xbox and offering live TV alongside streaming/web browsing/apps/games.<p>Looks like he was spot on.

I'd like to be impressed, but it's really hard. I have friends that work at Microsoft and have worked on various bits of this platform. I know personally the incredible amount of hard work that gets put into this product.<p>This presentation just feels... empty.<p>It's largely middle-aged men (and a woman who worked at tv companies) dryly reciting a badly written script with significant intentional pauses intended for applause after non-funny jokes.<p>The opening demo was kind of interesting. It's hard to tell if the tv/kinnect interactivity was staged or not, but it seems real enough to be impressive. More of this please.<p>Followed by a guy that no one knows or cares about, speaking at length the hardware, about how revolutionary the new product is. He doesn't actully say anything much about how the new system is built beyond "5 billion transistors and 8gb of RAM!", while briefly flashing some tech specs floating next to an amorphous blob of 3d Xbox parts.<p>Then we get to see a non-MS exec from EA introduce a 2 minute interview with some sports guys....<p>SHOW THE DAMNED GAME!!<p>Look, when you're showing off your product SHOW IT OFF. Don't put your fatty bag of mostly water in between the product and the people trying to learn about it.<p>Then the stream died for me after the CBS/Time Warner lady started talking. I caught the end where guy #1 is talking about Stephen Spielberg and Halo, the it died again.<p>For the HN audience, there's a ton of lessons to take from today. Talk about the product, don't get in the way, and make sure your tech supporting the launch works and is stable. Everything else will take care of itself.

Most people I know who own a PS3 consider it essentially a blu-ray player.<p>Most people I know who own an Xbox consider it essentially a Netflix player.<p>These people bought games, but they don't really play them.<p>I've got naught but my anecdata, but I think attempting to bill this new console as an entertainment system that <i>happens</i> to also play some great games is a very, very good idea.

As someone actually interested in playing games (and I know that may make me a minority here), this was the best commercial there will likely ever be for the Sony PlayStation 4.

Will the Xbox continue to be the "America-box?" A huge amount of this conference focused on services that are irrelevant to those outside the US (even irrelevant to Canadians). This all looks great if you have a stellar cable package and live in the USA where you get ESPN, but what about everyone else?

Is the underlying OS Windows 8? I think Microsoft can give its Windows 8 apps platform a big boost by giving them presence in the next Xbox.<p>EDIT: Looks like they use Windows 8, but the Windows 8 apps will need to be modified to work on Xbox. From Engadget:<p><i>In terms of whether apps will be cross-compatible between the regular Windows Store and the storefront accessed by the new console, we're told they won't. Developers will have to do a bit of work to make a Windows app suitable for the Xbox, not least in terms of tuning their UI for Kinect or the wireless controller. But Microsoft's engineers told us that the underlying similarity between Windows 8/RT and Windows for the Xbox should make this a pretty easy feat for coders. [ Ref: <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/21/xbox-one-runs-three-operating-systems/" rel="nofollow">http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/21/xbox-one-runs-three-opera...</a> ]</i>

<p><pre><code> &#62; 1080p camera... 60 FPS. Field of view increased by 60%.... &#62; motion tracking... detect skin pigmentation changes related to heart rate </code></pre> <i>In soviet russia, home entertainment system watches YOU!</i><p>Seriously, imagine being able to measure consumers' emotional reaction to your advertisements... if you were worried about information being gathered about you, with google adwords targeting you by search, or facebook data-mining your social network, you ain't seen <i>nothing</i> yet.

It is definitely telling that it took them 30 minutes into a 60 minute presentation to talk about games, then another 10 to talk about a non-sports game. Yes, they're saying they're going to talk more about games at E3, but a reveal is a "put your best foot forward" type of event, and Microsoft seems to be going for a "games are an afterthought" type of approach.<p>Compared to the PS4's continuation of Sony's "games first" philosophy and Nintendo's "we're sorry core gamers!" philosophy with the Wii U (that's not working out so hot right now, given how lukewarm core game developers are to it), it may be a risk that pans out for Microsoft, but it's a bit unfortunate: gaming—and not just sports gaming—has made gains into mainstream culture over the past decade, and it doesn't seem like it really needed to be brushed aside in order to "win" this generation's console war.

For me...the first xbox really rocked my world. I dropped in a mod-chip, used XBMC and my eyes for a home-entertainment system that can read digital files were finally opened.<p>I haven't used an optical disc for a movie since.<p>I used the original XboX, then transitioned to 360, then to PS3 - now my PS3 does what all of my previous xboxes did.<p>But....the truth is, with the 360, I was so blown away by how easy it was to connect to all my MSFT networked devices that I would gladly give this new xbox a chance to rock my world again.<p>MSFT has really gotten XboX right. Every. Single. Time.<p>I hope they don't try to lock down this one - where you can't play 'pirated content' and they have some hardware DRM or some bullshit like that.<p>That's the only reason I will wait until others try it out.<p>If it doesn't allow me to watch the content I want to watch - then I won't get it.<p>If I can......I just may.<p>Then again...my current PS3 is already pretty awesome so I may not need to.

I was most interested by their Live TV offering. But does anyone have any details on how they get the TV stream? One of the slides mentioned HDMI In/Out - does that mean it's going the GoogleTV route? I have a logitech revue - and I absolutely hate it.

Neither Sony or Microsoft have told me why I need to buy one of their next-gen consoles.<p>I own a PS3, Xbox 360 and a gaming PC. The 360 came first and combined with Xbox Live it became my default gaming device. Probably 60% of my games are for my Xbox 360. After a few years with my 360 I bought a PS3 because there were some exclusive games I wanted to play. In 2010 Battlefield 3 came out and I built a gaming PC for it because in my opinion the Battlefield series excels when played with a keyboard, mouse and servers that can accommodate large scale battles.<p>A strange side affect of building that gaming PC was that I started buying games for my PC instead of my consoles because the games looked and played better on my PC then my consoles.<p>This next console generation is going to be the most homogenous yet. Developers will be able to make a game that works on PC, Xbox One and PS4 so easily that brand loyalty will mean a lot less.<p>Unless Microsoft actually releases some TV features that actually work outside of the United States I don't know if I'll be buying one of these new consoles. I'll probably continue buying games for my PC until a platform exclusive game (which are becoming increasingly rare) comes out.

As a gamer living in Bolivia, 90% of the features peddled as REVOLUTIONARY will weigh in at ZERO for me.<p>I'll be getting a PS4. I read that you can't even play used games on the XBox One.

Surprised no one is talking about Skype.<p>This is a killer app and a genius acquisition by Microsoft. Having so many young, tech users using Skype is going to have a massive flow on effect to other users in particular older ones.

So now I can have a UI with ads overlaid on my TV ads? Fantastic!

I think this is fantastic for folks like me who have to juggle between my htpc (which has a cablecard so I can watch live tv on my media center) and my xbox (which I use to play games). Ofcourse il still have my htpc connected and use it frequently for other things (I am not sold on IE on xbox) but atleast it will make switching between watching tv,netflix, hulu and my games very simple. microsoft can take my money now, i want one of these things !

In our house, we have a 1st-gen ATV, Roku HD (again, older gen), and an XBox 360. We've largely found them redundant in most senses, except for the following:<p>Can't watch Xfinity on the Roku or ATV, can't watch Netflix or unfiltered Youtube on ATV (can't get any VEVO content on the ATV), can't rent Amazon movies (prime is OK on 360) on 360 or ATV, and can't serve music from multiple computers to 360 or Roku.<p>We can flip that around and say that no one device gives us all of the entertainment (and gaming options) that work best for us. I like to play a few games here and there, so there should be some console. I haven't even bothered to bring in the cable box (it actually only got plugged in long enough to authorize us for XFinity) because I've run out of HDMI ports (there's a blue-ray player in there too, because I'm sure as heck not going to pay Hulu for their buggy service just so we can stream the Criterion Movies, when most are on DVD/BD)...<p>I like the concepts that MSFT is showing off here. I haven't reviewed the remote music service from MSFT in a while, but last time it lacked the simplicity of the ATV, especially for multiple libraries. If they've got that improved, the ATV is gone. (Having no other real value to us.) If they'd remove the restriction from paying to rent videos on Amazon, the Roku would be gone too. My partner uses all of these devices for her entertainment, and would happily switch to just an Xbox 1 if it does the job well. I'd be happy to have to maintain fewer devices (each with their own problems, let's not get down that path!).<p>I'm not sure about the source of much of the angst here, but it does sound just about exactly what our household has been looking for.

I know the voice features have been available in the Xbox already, but I am really excited about them in the new Xbox. I expect them to be light years beyond on what they are now and key piece of the devices functionality. If it works really well it could open a whole new way of interacting with computers. It could also open the door to voice activated home automation, by training the masses to use voice controlled devices.

With WiFi direct, I wonder if this'll finally bring Miracast/WiDi mainstream. Maybe the ability to stream audio and video wirelessly is a niche feature, but for me Airplay is the one thing keeping me on Apple's platform.

So this is a Windows-lite PC, cable box, Xbox video game system? It has hdmi in right?<p>I'm officially old because I do not find this interesting at all. My son will want it, so we will have it, but as a person who buys a lot of tech, I am not seeing the appeal.<p>I think it is the all-in-one, do-everything approach it Microsoft is taking with this that disinterests me. Why does every company want to be your everything now a days?

Why does it look like a VCR?

Xbox one is more a media center than a vg console itself.<p>Sadly we're witnessing the second vg crash. No more hardcore gamers, no more preowned games...<p>It seems that if we want to have a REAL GAMING EXPERIENCE, (this includes fun, creativity, good stories, simple controls) we will need to go back to the past.<p>Fortunately, 'retrogaming scene' will gather more adepts. =)

I guess people still care about t.v.

Shame so many anti MS people on HN that this gets flagged off the front page so quick :/

This thing is seriously ugly. Makes me think of the first XBox.

You can have two things on the screen at once. Such innovation.

After seeing the presentations for the WiiU, the Playstation 4 and the Xbox One I think we really another gaming company. Apple or perhaps even a startup.

Wait until Microsoft unveils its first ever XBOX TV.

Years ahead, but still can't make a sandwitch!

So no XNA replacement?

The other discussion is here.<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5744967" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5744967</a><p>It was up at #3 then went to the second page,strange.

Was a brilliant presentation IMO. Maybe Sony's extremely disappointing PS4 event set the bar too low, but anyway this Xbox One announcement gave me goosebumps. The possibilities are endless. Let's see what they have saved for E3.

The thing about Xbox 360 not having Blu-ray just made streaming/renting/buying a lot better. Why go to a store when you can just turn the Xbox on and do the same thing. I do want to say that it is a great option for the people who buy Blu-ray discs, but I like the convenience of not being attached to huge, physical disc libraries.