Xbox One First Impressions is an archived article, comments were removed with update, sorry for any inconvenience.

 

This article is not an in depth look at the console but rather my initial impressions with it, I will write an updated article in future when more of the features become available.

Let’s get started!

The Console:

The Xbox One is nothing special in the looks department, my first thoughts taking it out of the box were “at least it will blend in with the room”. It’s not ugly but it isn’t pretty either but it will blend in to any home without being an eye sore. One thing I really enjoyed is how quite the console is which is a welcome change from the days of the 360 which at times sounded like a hairdryer.

The Controller:

When I removed the controller from its wrapping…..I was anxious, would it be a step forward from the already brilliant (and best of last generations) Xbox 360 controller, or would it be a step back. Thankfully it’s better in every way! What I first noticed when holding it is how satisfying it is to hold, the grips don’t feel as chunky, the ugly battery pack bump has been removed and in its place a smoother slot for the battery has been added giving the controller an over all sleeker look. The analog sticks are taller than the 360′s and smaller with a deeper well in the center for improved grips as well as a rougher material on the edges for better grips over all.

The back and start button have been removed and replaced with the view (replaces “Back”) and menu (replaces “start”) buttons. and the guide button sits higher on controller instead of in between these buttons like on the 360, hopefully this will stop the guide button being accidentally pressed; which is something I fell prey to many a time on the Xbox 360.

The Right and Left triggers also have rumble in them and boy is it satisfying, especially when shooting a gun it gives you the sensation of  recoil. To me, its something that cant be explained or read about, but has to be experienced to actually appreciate, but trust me, when you get that first rumble you will emit a little “ohhhhhhh” of glee just like I did.

Some people might not like the lighter feel, the looser triggers but I personally do and think the majority will enjoy it.

The Kinect:

At first my connect wouldn’t follow commands on the dashboard and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why. After getting in contact with customer support it turned out that some customers in  Ireland/UK were experiencing a bug where the Kinect would flat out not work on the dashboard and only in game, however I was told it would be fixed soon and in the mean time switch my location to Australia and that would sort it out in the mean time.  So after this bug was sorted I could get the full potential from my Kinect and not just the in game voice commands or Skype calls.

So….is it any good? and the answer is yes, most of the time. Sometimes I had to repeat commands if I spoke to fast or it wouldn’t understand what I wanted it to do but bear in mind this was maybe 2/10 times however when it doesn’t work it makes you feel a little silly. But when it works it is amazing! I much prefer using my voice to navigate menus, boot my game, turn on and off my console and browse the internet! There is serious satisfaction in quickly navigating the Windows 8 themed OS with just your voice, it was a jaw dropping moment when I got a message in game and said “Xbox….Read message” and was instantly taken to the message which I used Smartglass to reply on (more on that in a bit) then saying “Xbox…Play Dead Rising 3″ and brought right back into the action in a split second. People say they wont use their Kinect but I think when they play with the features a little they will not want to be without it again.

(When giving a command be sure to pause after saying Xbox so it knows you are about to give it a command. I watched allot of videos where people would say “XboxGoHome” instead of the much more effective “Xbox….Go Home” )

The OS:

As I mentioned above the Xbox One’s OS is pretty much the exact same as Windows 8. Tiles are king here and I have to say it does look pretty! However it took some getting used to when it came to finding what you wanted, I spent a long time trying  to find things early on and that could prove frustrating for people as it did for me.

My favorite thing is how fast it is in booting up and navigating . There is little to no waiting time when you make you selection and when using the Kinect you can eliminate multiple button presses just with your voice.

SmartGlass: 

Smart Glass is an app for your Apple/Android/Windows phone that allows you to use your phone as a second screen. I never used it on the 360 but felt it was worth trying on the One. I mainly use it for replying to messages which is much faster than using the on screen keyboard. I also used it to answer in game calls during a session of Dead Rising 3 and can report no problems there. I will need to spend more time with smartglass to give  a solid impression of it but right now I’ll say it has great potential.

 

So that’s it for now. The console will probably change greatly over the years and there is load of potential to improve an already impressive system