"Xbox One" Revealing Impressions

I think I'm not alone when I say that the recent reveal for the Xbox One was pretty disappointing.  Everything from the confusing name to the major lack of information.  With the announcement of the PS4 preceding it, there was a lot of pressure Microsoft's shoulders to reveal something even better, but maybe it was the fact that they wanted to catch up with Sony that they even attempted this unsatisfactory unveiling.

Let me start with the reveal itself.  The event opened with a video that featured many different people, among   them a few internet stars as well as Steven Spielberg, all of them praising the new Xbox.  It wasn't an exciting video, but it acted as an average introduction, definitely heightening the suspense of the new hardware.  After the intro, Interactive Entertainment president Don Mattrick came on and went over some of the history of the Xbox and the Xbox 360, and all the while hailing the new console as a revolution for living rooms everywhere.  This is all normal banter that we would expect from such an event, but as soon as the name "Xbox One" was uttered from his lips, there was a slight pause of, well, disappointment.  Honestly, its not a horrible name, but all this building up only to subtract the original Xbox by 359?  Personally, I think they could have done better with the name, but I mean at least it wasn't the Wii.

Then they showed what the new console would look like.  If you want a good example, just think of a VCR with a smaller looking Kinect and an over-sized Xbox 360 controller sitting next to it.  Compared to the 360,  the console seems bigger and more clunkier.  Although the sleek black finish looks nice, the console still appears clunky and just big.  Not that bigger is bad, but when it looks like it was designed in the 90's, there's a slight problem there.

After a nervous looking Mattrick exited, senior president of the Online Audience Business Yusuf Mehdi walked on and began describing how the Xbox One will introduce a completely new generation of gaming.  This is funny, because throughout the rest of the event, there was little information about games.  At all.  It was there, yes, but for two games- Call of Duty: Ghosts, and a new Forza title.  Those were the only two games that were discussed.  This, to me, is unacceptable. They showed off some new animation hardware, played a trailer or two, then completely turned away from gaming.  This is the one thing that annoys me the most about the reveal: when revealing a GAME console, the primary focus should be, oh, I don't know, GAMES.  Now, Mehdi stated that more will be revealed at E3, but that just proves more that they were completely unprepared for the gaming part of their new GAMING console.  So what did they end up focusing on?

Here, watch these highlights for a hint:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbWgUO-Rqcw

So games were not the focus of the new console, it appears, but much rather the connection it holds to the television.  So, in a nutshell, they made it easier to watch TV...on your TV.  They added cool little features to the new hardware, like voice control and a Kinect that comes bundled with every console, but I'm going to have to see more information on the games themselves before I even think about being excited for this.


Don Mattrick