Jun 16, 2016 09:49 PM
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Microsoft's Xbox One is at once a next-gen gaming console and a bold attempt to reinvent your home entertainment experience. It's built around Microsoft's new and improved Kinect, which recognizes you the moment you step in front of the system and allows users to watch, play and share media from a variety of services using voice commands. It's not perfect – the voice recognition can be spotty, and certain aspects feel like they're still in beta – but overall, the experience feels like a slice of the future.
The new controller is something of a revelation in terms of rumble. Four motors inside the device provide more subtle, immersive physical feedback, from the low hum of your engine as you hit the pavement in Forza 5 to the heavy blasts of rumble as your jury-rigged, post-apocalyptic skull-crusher connects with a zombie cranium in Dead Rising 3. The thumb sticks are more concave and have textured rims, making them easier to grip in even the most dire of virtual circumstances.
Setup
Xbox One's interface is an impressive accomplishment – clean and uncluttered, making perhaps the best use to date of Microsoft's live tile system. Everything from the easily visible avatar icons to the ease of getting around makes for a sophisticated man-machine dialogue. After a setup process that takes only a few minutes, you'll have your console trained to turn on not only itself but also your compatible television, cable box and receiver the moment you step into the room and say the words, "Xbox, on."
Performance
Microsoft's most impressive exclusive launch titles are Ryse: Son of Rome, Forza Motorsport 5 and Dead Rising 3, which all run in 1080p at 60 frames per second. None represent a giant graphical leap beyond the last generation, but it's been eight years since Xbox 360 debuted, and it certainly shows. Xbox One games now look like high-end PC games – unsurprising, perhaps, since the console uses largely PC components. This isn't a bad thing, and the performance you get out of the machine easily bests an equivalently-priced PC.
Media
From the get-go, Microsoft has been making a big deal about Xbox One's multimedia capabilities – so much so that their reveal of the console earlier this year emphasized said capabilities at the expense of ignoring the machine's actual gaming prowess. But now that the console is out, it's plain to see why: this is the most ambitious attempt to date to unify all of your movies and television.
