After Sony’s conference in February, I got a little bit excited. Sony kept the focus on games, improving gameplay and the interactivity between the gamer and the game. The Playstation 4 sounded like a step forward for games consoles, taking the focus back to the gamer in his room playing games for hours on end. When Microsoft announced they were doing a conference in a similar vain, I was intrigued. The game was on now. Sony had made the first play, and now Microsoft were going to retaliate and make this generation a real bout for the consumer dollar.
Then Microsoft’s conference happened and the match had an abrupt end. ¬_O
I want to care about the Xbox One. I truly, truly do. I chose an Xbox 360 over Playstation 3 despite my absolute adoration for the Playstation 1 and 2 because Microsoft had the better exclusive titles and seemed to offer the better solo experience. I want to be in Microsoft’s corner, or at least be willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, but Microsoft really just sold me ,and indeed anyone who truly cares about their consoles being able to play games, up the river.
The first half of the conference was dedicated entirely to the televisual/multi-media capabilities of the Xbox One and it’s new Kinect features. As the internet has been quick to point out, TV was mentioned to almost a laughable degree. The Xbox One can be used to stream television and films, with the Netflix logo nicely placed in the demonstration. Skype and other programs can be used in conjunction with other programs, so you can skype a friend while watching a movie, or look up information about the movie. This is all well and good, but this is already possible on a PC and across several devices in the home. But this is where the Xbox One’s title comes in. Essentially, Microsoft are going for the sitting-room-media-hub approach in their latest home console effort. It was referenced several times that Xbox One would be the perfect appliance in your sitting room for the whole family to use. They are moving away from the idea of gaming, and moving towards multi-media.
The Kinect plays a very crowd-pleasing role in this. With the Kinect, which always has to be on and attached to the console, detects your movement and voice and ties it to your account, so you can tell the console to turn on and it will sign into your account there and then and bring up your movies, tv and music that you have recently used. It’s all very ‘world of tomorrow’, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this sort of technology in it’s infancy will be riddled with issues. Microsoft already have a bad reputation with the Red Rings of Death on the 360, so I’m not going to be too quick to trust them to get this right first try. Plus, questions are being asked regarding how sensitive the Kinect will be. If I’m in conversation with someone in the room and say ‘Xbox on’ in a sentence, will it turn on? Same with ‘Xbox off’? What about if I have a sore throat, or any kind of speech altering impediment? I’m willing to wait and see how sensitive the technology is before writing it off, but these are questions I’m going to need the answer to before I even consider the product.
Another issue that is being brought up is privacy. The Kinect always being on means Microsoft, and whoever Microsoft wants to sell the data to, is watching you. In a patent filed in 2011, Microsoft confirmed that the Kinect will be monitoring movie trends in users on an ongoing basis. This means potentially you will have to pay a certain amount for the amount of people you wish to view the film, and if any more people arrive, you will need to up the amount the amount paid. This is speculation, but certainly something to consider.
The next section, and the first to feature any relevancy to actual games, was dedicated to EA Sports, who announced an deal had been struck with Mircosoft. I’m not much of a sports guy, and the NHL wasn’t one of the sports mentioned, so I’m indifferent to this much of the conference. The NFL deal is somewhat cool, and certainly if something similar were struck for NHL, or even FIFA, I’d be a little interested, but as it stands, nothing of interest. The graphics do look awesome though, with a very nice looking trailer featuring NFL, FIFA, UFC and NBA pros talking about working on the Xbox One.
There was some nice footage shown of the exclusive driving title, Forza Motorsport, as well as Quantum Break, which showcased a spiffy half real-life trailer and a bombastic scene involving a ferry mowing through a bridge in an unnamed location. Certainly intriguing, but much like a film teaser when the film is out in two years time, you just sort of shrugged it off until more information comes out. Then came the ominous ‘Halo’ logo. Man I was excited. I love me some Halo. Then it was announced Steven Spielberg was doing a Halo TV show. Woo…. Hoo!? This is very cool, I adore sci-fi serials on television and Spielberg is the absolute king of cinema. That said, it’s not exclusive to the Xbox One or even to Netflix, so really, the announcement was almost totally irrelevant. Definitely something that could have been announced at E3 instead.
Call of Duty: Ghosts was the only actual game to be shown off, and at this point, I had to stop myself from turning it off. Call of Duty is a huge series for gaming, and is helping to stimulate the industry and garner real attention from outside investors, no doubt. The single-player campaigns are being written by bigger names each time, this time having Stephen Gaghan of Traffic and Rules of Engagement fame take to the helm, and the releases are getting bigger each time. There are reasons to care about Call of Duty, but my god, all the majority of it’s fans seem to want is multi-player. Of course, the multi-player to be virtually the same as any of the others, with a couple of extra perks and what not. The engine for the game has been built from scratch, and again, trailer looked pretty awesome. If it was for a movie, I’d be interested. But the most laughable moment came when they dedicated a cool five minutes to talking about your new squad-member. A frickin’ dog. A well designed and intelligent dog, but a dog nonetheless. Talk about your pandering to aesthetics and cheap thrills.
Microsoft closed by saying there were 15 new titles coming next year for the Xbox One and 8 new franchises. Actual gameplay footage will be found at E3. After this conference, I won’t be holding my breath, but I’m still open to Microsoft winning me over.
TV, sports, Call of Duty! Indeed, internet, indeed.
