i was actually kind of excited about the xbox one debut and watched parts of the “unveiling”. yes, the name is weird, but i get what is meant by it. i was impressed by the home entertainment integration, but while seeing lots of things that were pretty cool…i didn’t really see anything breathtaking. since the xbox 360 platform is eight years old now i kind of expected some leaps and bounds. instead i felt like i was looking at the xbox 360 generation 3. that’s obviously an exaggeration when you look at the hardware differences, but what i really mean is feature-wise.

but…there’s still a lot of details to come no doubt. still lots of rumors and speculation surrounding the xbox one.
so far, i view the following negatively:
all games have to be installed on the hard drive. even with 500GB i could see people with lots of games (over 20), apps, etc running out of space and having to uninstall games. i think a terabyte drive would have been more appropriate, but perhaps it would have add too much extra cost to the unit right now. maybe in later versions…

required internet connection/checking in. i absolutely hate this concept. even though my current xbox is always connected and it wouldn’t affect me much, i still hate it. i should be able to bring my game console to antarctica or a cabin in the middle of the woods if i so desired. the mandatory installation of games to the hdd is probably less about performance and more about this checking in requirement.

used/borrowed/rented game unknowns. there’s been some outrageous rumors concerning used games. the latest explanation is that games are uniquely identified and when a game is used on a different console, the original console loses access to it. that doesn’t sound terrible to me. i think i could live with that. i wonder what happens if i rented a game and installed it on the hdd, then returned the game to the store. and lets say it’s an unpopular game that doesn’t get rented by anyone for an entire year. would i still keep access to that game for the whole year? unless there’s some stupid requirement you have to install it the hdd AND have the disc to get it to run.

no backwards compatibility. this is just plain sucks. i wonder if the xbox one can effectively emulate a xbox 360 (even with its vastly superior hardware specs).

i’m definitely on the fence on whether or not i’d ever get a xbox one. of course, i’d never get any system at launch. probably not until 2 years after launch realistically. my decision will ultimately depend on how draconian microsoft will be with their need for control over the platform and of course on what games are released on the platform. i imagine the graphic capabilities on the xbox one and the PS4 are going to be insane…

update 9/24/16:
microsoft won me over this console generation by reversing a lot of their dumb decisions made during the xbox one launch. most notably, i was interested in the xbox 360 backwards compatibility.  as of the time i’m writing this there are 253 xbox 360 games that run on the xbox one. i really think that if the xbox one had debuted with this feature they would have dominated console sales this generation. there’s no tricks or deceit to the feature, they’re really allowing you to continue playing last gen games that you invested in on the xbox one. that’s really a nice move on their part. the norm before was to just keep buying re-releases each generation. basically, a money pit.

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