I recently got to play around with the Xbox One and get a feel for its features and what it brings to the table. After doing a lot of research on the console beforehand, and being able to mess with it now that it is out, I feel like I have an appropriate sense of what I think of the finished product.

The Xbox One is a fairly large console, but not as big as I expected it to be. From what I saw in videos before touching it in person, I thought it would be massive. While it is a very large console, I felt used to its size, given that I have an original “fat” Xbox 360. The One is not much bigger than its predecessor, but it makes the PS4 look small by comparison.

As far as how the console looks, I agree with the general audience on this one: The console is downright ugly. Not a single aspect of the box’s design is visually attractive to me. Not even the awesome glowing white Xbox logo on the front can save the One from looking like a weird VCR/Betamax/cable box contraption from hell. I really dislike the design theme they chose, and given that the newest version of the 360 has a similar look, I would wager that it is a theme that will not go anywhere soon. I just have to say this: When the inevitable slim version of the One comes out, I really hope they can bring its aesthetics into modern times. While users will obviously spend more time looking at their TV than the console, I would expect my $500 to go towards something that at least tries to look newer than a radio box from World War II.

Microsoft learned from the Red Ring of Death fiasco with the 360, as made apparent by the awesome ventilation in the One. A very large intake comprises half of the top of the console, with vents leading down into a large fan that exhausts heat out of the rear of the console. Though bigger than the PS4, the One still has an external power supply unit brick that you will need to find room for when setting up. Some people knock the One for still having this, but I think it is a good thing. Sometimes when a console fails, it is just the PSU that needs replacing. With Xboxes, that is no problem; buy a new PSU cord. With the PlayStation 4, you would have to mail the console back to Sony so they could replace the internal PSU instead. If overheating becomes a problem for the consoles, Xbox One will probably have the advantage in terms of serviceability.

My thoughts on Kinect 2.0 are quick and simple: I see potential in the future, but the present is riddled with flaws. It is a powerful piece of hardware. The 1080p camera follows you around the room during Skype calls, knowing who you are and where you are. It recognizes your voice and distinguishes it from others so they can not screw with you while you game. It can make navigating the interface even faster than using a controller. While all of these are nice promises, some of them are only half-delivered. Kinect voice integration is a great thing when it works, but a big flaw with it is that the phrase “Xbox, [insert command]” can be dodgy. My biggest gripe is that before the Kinect can recognize anything you say, it first needs to process you saying “Xbox.” My inclination when speaking is to quickly say “Xbox, play ‘Dead Rising 3′” without a moment’s pause. Unfortunately, this will almost always lead to you not getting what you want. Instead, you need to enunciate yourself in an unnatural way: “Xbox [wait some time, Xbox starts listening], play ‘Dead Rising 3.'” The way that Kinect currently functions is a frustrating process of alerting the console to listen to you and then saying what you want it to hear. Why can I not preface my command with “Xbox” and immediately say what I want without having to wait for an on-screen confirmation that the system is listening? Who knows, but the extra waiting time is enough for me to not even consider the Kinect over my controller for most tasks.

And with a controller like this, who would want to use anything else anyway? This is hands-down the best console controller I have ever used. It takes quite a product to knock the 360 controller off its pedestal, but the One’s does just that. Almost every aspect has been improved upon, but the most notable is the d-pad. Instead of a horribly-molded singular piece of inaccurate plastic like the 360’s, the One’s d-pad is independently 4-way directional, like what PlayStation fans are used to. Even better, the d-pad is “clicky” like a mouse, giving it a great premium feeling.

The rest of the controller can be described as “comfy” more than anything else. It is slightly larger than the 360’s, but does not feel bulky. The triggers now have their own rumble motors, which make racing games like Forza feel as if you are gripping a steering wheel that is losing control. It is another way to immerse yourself in a game, but the feature is only as good as the developers who choose to implement it.

The bumpers (LB and RB) on the One’s controller were very hard for me to click when compared to the 360’s. I did not enjoy the amount of force it took to press either bumper, but that is either something that will get broken in or that a player will need to get used to. The triggers have a satisfying, subtle “thud” to them that you can feel when you press them all the way down.

The Xbox button in the top-center of the controller glows white, the same as the logo on the console and Kinect itself. While I will miss the lime green theme of the 360, this beautiful white light is a welcome turn for the console. I hope future accessories have this style of lighting.

The controller can be connected via USB but still runs on AA batteries. A play and charge kit is available separately. I really expected Microsoft to take a cue from Sony, but they still have not. As far as controller power supply goes, even Sony’s PS3 controllers have the Xbox One’s beat. At least the batteries are fully internal now, eliminating the big rump of the 360 controller’s backside.

I was not overly impressed with actual performance of the console. Setup took nearly an hour, with a large day-1 update taking absolutely forever to download, install and ready up. Luckily, signing in and calibrating the Kinect is much faster.

Still though, all I could think of when experiencing the Xbox’s load times was that everything was slow. When launching a game, it took a good 25 minutes for the game to be playable. During that time, the loading bar was stuck at 0 percent, leaving us wondering if something was wrong. After jumping to 100 percent, we entered “Ryse: Son of Rome,” only to see that we had another massive install to incur before we could even get into the campaign. This install took about 40 minutes, leaving us with a grand total of waiting more than an hour to play the game after we inserted it.

The interface itself is much more fleshed out than the PS4’s. I like all of the icons you can rearrange, as well as the fact that you can change the overall theme’s color. I wish custom themes were available like on the old consoles, but that will probably come later. While I do not particularly like the way Windows 8 is going with the “Live Tiles” look, it works for a game console for the most part.

Switching between tasks in the interface is fast but can be a little overwhelming. With so much to do in the tiled interface, it can be easy to lose yourself or your desired action/window. Kinect can help with this, but then again you would only have a 50/50 shot of being heard anyway. Organizing tiles to your liking helps tremendously, and once you get the hang of it, you can fly through the user interface and switch tasks as quickly as on your smartphone. It is pretty awesome to move seamlessly between Skype and your game, but the “Snap” feature, which makes two processes show up on screen at once, could use some stability work.

You can now watch TV on the One. My personal opinion? I give absolutely zero cares about the feature. Why? TV is dying. As ads become more infiltrating and the Internet takes over more of our lives, the outrageous prices of cable plans is having lots of people (my friends and I included) telling ourselves that cable is a massive waste of money at this point in the game. Microsoft is banking on a dying medium of entertainment, and I cannot fathom their reasoning behind it. This would have been an OK feature for the 360, but as someone who has a pretty good idea of where the market is headed, I can only shake my head at this design choice. In my humble opinion, Microsoft deserved the flak they got at the One’s reveal earlier this year. TV is not the way to go. I understand that the goal of the One is to take over the living room, but what if future living rooms do not have cable at all, and are instead getting their programs through only Internet? Time will tell.

Game selection is limited. That is OK, it is a launch after all. There is not much to be said about them right now, given how little selection there is, not to mention the fact that I have not been able to play all of the launch games anyway. There is a debate about resolution on the One vs. the PS4, but that is for a future blog entry. Bottom line: The games look better than current gen, if only by a little. Selection is probably better than the PS4 at the moment, depending on your tastes.

The Xbox One had a very rocky unveiling. Let us be honest, it was disastrous. But after gathering themselves, we now have Microsoft’s Xbox One in all of its somewhat overly-ambitious glory, living up to some of its promises and yet confirming some of our doubts as well. I think, a couple years down the line, this will be a console worth buying in its entirety for those that are not die-hard Xbox fans. At launch, though, there is a lot of bugs to be ironed out. Lots of design choices to be questioned. If you are an Xbox fan and have the money and simply can not wait, the console is for you, right here and right now. The issues I mentioned can be fixed via simple patches in the future that we’ll have to wait for, but hey, that is a new product launch for you.

The One is an interesting device. We will see what the future holds for it, but I will be waiting to buy it until a slim version comes out down the line.

3/5