
Xbox One: The Review - lotso
http://www.polygon.com/a/xbox-one-review
======
JonSkeptic
If you've ever complained about surveillance then I don't see how you could
even consider buying this.

>Kinect is also used for lots of little things throughout the Xbox One's user
experience. Profiles support fast facial recognition for sign-in. Once a
profile has a face associated with it, the console will sign that person in
whenever they sit in front of the console — it even says hello. Controllers
sync automatically based on who's holding them.

Not to mention that Microsoft has been working on techniques for reading the
emotions of people in the room through body language in order to better serve
up adds.

By having this in your living room, you have a device that passively builds
facial profiles, monitors emotional states, and counts the number of people in
the room. But people are paying to be spied on by Microsoft so that makes it
OK, right? Even when the NSA goes to Micrsoft and says "give us access to your
data".

But privacy doesn't play the latest Killzone or log you in with facial
recognition or play blu-rays.

There's too many people in the valley that complain about surveillance and
then do everything in their power to enable it in ways ever more omnipresent
and pervasive.

~~~
beardfu
The system will function without Kinect plugged in, Microsoft reversed the
always on requirement:

[http://www.xbox.com/en-GB/xbox-one/get-the-facts](http://www.xbox.com/en-
GB/xbox-one/get-the-facts)

> _Xbox One does not require a Kinect to be plugged in for the system to
> function._

You can supposedly control the use of your data according to the fact page
also.

~~~
tostitos1979
Thanks, I missed that they changed this requirement. As an owner of all 3 of
the previous generation of consoles, the always-on camera + voice was an
absolute deal breaker for me.

I'm still going to hold off for a few reasons. The first is the requirement
for XBox Live Gold. It makes no sense to me why I have to pay $$$ to Microsoft
in order to watch Netflix. My PS3 does quite fine without a subscription. I
was a fan of the Halo franchise but after the "incidents" with Bungie (Halo
shoot'em ups) and Ensemble (lesser known for Halo Wars, more known for Age of
Empires), I feel bad supporting the franchise with my $$$.

I'm also getting old and have less time to play games on my consoles. My iPad
used to get a lot of game-related usage until the games started becoming
"free" and continuously bugged me for in-game coin purchases.

Maybe I am just out of touch.

~~~
duvet
The PS4 requires Playstation Plus to play online but I'm not sure whether apps
like Netflix require that.

I had the same issue with Halo. Ultimately, I'm not going to support the Xbox
One due to likely surveillance. At least with the PS4 the camera isn't forced
on you at purchase. Although the PS4 camera does seem to have similar features
like facial recognition. I wonder whether that will encourage anything
malicious.

~~~
tostitos1979
Wow ... no multiplayer without PS+? You seem to be correct and this is a step
back for Sony in my opinion. I thought they were the humble ones this time
around and not pulling this crap.

PS+ doesn't seem to be required for Netflix and Amazon though.

Source:
[http://mashable.com/2013/11/07/playstation-4-facts/](http://mashable.com/2013/11/07/playstation-4-facts/)

------
iMark
Again, focusing on the presentation rather than the content, I'm extremely
impressed with the integration of advertising on the page, using
position:fixed to lock it in place while the content scrolls over it.

If we go with the assumption that advertising is a necessary evil, this isn't
a bad direction in which to take it.

~~~
ilaksh
What are you talking about? 100% of that page is an advertisement.

~~~
golergka
That claim seems pretty weak, especially without any support whatsoever.

~~~
strathmeyer
Unless we all look at the page for ourselves??

------
angersock
_" A notable disappointment is the absence of real-name support at launch. One
of the PS4's most enjoyable enhancements has been postponed for Xbox One until
an unspecified future date. Microsoft has also dropped social-network
integration, which seems like a short-sighted reaction to the lack of users of
the Xbox 360 apps."_

This is a great move by Microsoft--tempting though it would be to send hate
mail to the jerks you meet online.

~~~
snarkyturtle
Agreed. Don't really see the need to have social media embedded with
everything. I just don't see how gaming could tie into it, though it might
just be the bad impression of getting spammed with Facebook notifications from
their games.

Also, if Youtube is any indication, users will prefer to use usernames versus
real names, especially if you're potentially interacting with people you don't
know.

~~~
leapinglemur55
I assume (hope) it would be more like Blizzard's system for Starcraft, which
only lets you see the real names of friends that you add using an email
address (and if they accept). Showing a person's real name to everyone in game
just sounds insane.

~~~
CornishPasty
This is exactly how the PS4 real name system works. You have to add a friend
as a "real name" friend, and they have to add you back with the same
permissions. Just adding someone as a friend doesn't grant them permission to
see your real name.

------
VLM
The article was well matched to its topic; like modern video games, its flashy
and high tech, but nothing new or interesting.

I had to laugh at the kinect video. The white/beige featureless walls with no
human pictures in its field of view, the actors wearing extremely high
contrast clothes, the incredible cinematography style smooth and even
lighting... My real world experiences with the kinect on a 360 have been super
aggravating and frankly I hate the GD thing. Hey, all you need to do, is
remodel and redecorate your home and buy new clothes... No, instead I think, F
microsoft, my plan will be to not buy another kinect instead, they need my
money more than I need their aggravation. Don't get me wrong, its really cool
for about the first 15 minutes until it gets super aggravating.

As a disclaimer after the initial newness wore off I tend to use the 360 for
living room youtube viewing (you need to disable kinect and voice recognition
or miscues will drive you insane) and multi-player minecraft on the same
screen at the same time is entertaining. And I play Forza although the review
notes the new version has been neutered and downgraded so I don't want it.

~~~
girvo
_> Hey, all you need to do, is remodel and redecorate your home and buy new
clothes..._

A friend of mine is an editor for a tech magazine, and has been playing with
the Xbone (I totally read that as EX-bone now...) -- the Kinect is a thousand
times better now, in that regard.

~~~
VLM
Then they should have done a video in my somewhat less well lit living room,
with a couch that's the same color as my wife's shirt, and a stereotypical
wedding pix in the background and peculiar shadows.

If its higher performance, well, show it!

The real killer is the concept. The highest performance way to do "up down
enter" on a menu is obviously a controller not an arm and camera.

Kinect doesn't have to work very well for my daughter to have fun with her
dance games. But for a UI to a menu, it does kinda actually have to work all
the time, which is a meta-UI issue. If it was just a dancin' jumpin'
peripheral, which its "good enough" for, then I'd be very happy, but no its
gotta be implemented as the worlds cruddiest most aggravating menu navigation
system, which makes it an epic fail.

My carpenters hammer is a great tool for nail installation, but an epic fail
at screw installation and forcing everyone to use hammers to install screws is
just going to piss people off.

~~~
girvo
Fair points!

His opinion of it was that the voice navigation is far more useful than the
"swipe your hand like an idiot" bits.

~~~
VLM
I had to disable voice navigation because I'd be watching a youtube video or
whatever, and my daughter would be talking to my wife across the room or the
next room, and I'd randomly get restarting or skipped videos or whatever. I
decided it was misinterpreting conversations in the room as me saying "xbox,
next" or whatever. I don't recall if I software disabled it (is there an
option?) or the old fashioned hardware disable using duct tape and stuff. Its
been months since I've had a problem, so I have no proof (logs or whatever)
but the correlation is interesting. (Edited to add, I'm not even sure the yt
app supports voice... but the correlation with "I got really pissed off and
shut off a bunch of features" and "it works better now" still exists)

Once kinect and voice are disabled, it is a pretty decent console.

------
math0ne
People that make articles like this are freakin' artisans, love the page.

~~~
mrspeaker
Agreed. A couple of people here have pointed out that it's broken for them, or
they don't like wasted pixels or something (somebody think of the pixels!) -
but technical problems aside: this, and the PS4 review change my views of what
an online article should be. It obviously doesn't apply to all content, but
for a review of next-gen game consoles it really adds a sense of... tactile-
ness? I dunno. But they are fantastic!

~~~
gabemart
I feel out of touch for saying this, but I found the page visually exhausting.
I don't know exactly why - it's partially because the contrast of the text is
too low on the white background and partially because I find extremely long
pages disorientating, but that doesn't account for all of it.

I'm all for beautiful, elegant presentation, but when it comes to reading a
long article I don't want lots of movement and twiddly bits.

~~~
jimzvz
I agree. It also causes my fans to spin up which isn't very relaxing.

------
phoboslab
It's interesting that the D-Pad on the controller is now just a cross, instead
of this awkward circle with a hinted cross on top.

Didn't Nintendo have a patent for the cross D-Pad? Hence all the other "fun"
ideas from Sega, Sony and Microsoft.

Edit: Yep, the patent expired a while ago:

 _U.S. Patent 4,687,200 (expired in 2005) - Nintendo 's multi-directional
switch_ \-
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-pad#Patents](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-pad#Patents)

~~~
CatsoCatsoCatso
My first thought was that having just a cross eliminates the ability to easily
hit a diagonal on the D-Pad. I can't imagine it being easy than what was
before.

~~~
Conlectus
The problem with having it be a disk is that it's hard to push any direction
reliably. If it is a cross, if gives you fingers a guide, and actually makes
it easier to go diagonally by doing a sort of roll from the top to side.

~~~
anon4
Personally I have an Xbox360 controller for use with my PC and both a Nintendo
Wii and DS and I find that it's much easier for me to reliably press diagonals
on the xbox controller, than either the DS or Wii controller.

------
bbx
Try tapping Up-Up-Down-Down-Left-Right-Left-Right-B-A on the pad.

~~~
vidyesh
Brilliant, now I guess I'll waste my time looking for Konami all over other
Polygon big reviews.

Edit : PS4 Review too.
[http://www.polygon.com/a/ps4-review](http://www.polygon.com/a/ps4-review)

~~~
tostitos1979
lol ... which one?

------
n1kh1lp
Can anyone tell me what framework/technology was used to design this site? It
looks really good.

~~~
madeofpalk
From what I've heard from The Vergecast (sister publication), they have a
custom CMS that focuses heavily one building these super-custom one-off
designs for 'big' articles

~~~
girvo
Yep, done in Ruby on Rails (well, at least all of The Verge and Polygon is)
IIRC.

------
ssafejava
_The nicest description most Polygon staff could manage for the Xbox One 's
silhouette is "inoffensive" — there's no sugarcoating the console's lack of
visual flair. Microsoft has created a system designed to blend into the other
components of your home entertainment center, and it does that ... for better
or worse._

 _It 's quiet, and it runs relatively cool. But if you’re looking for
subtlety, this is not the console for you._

Is it just me, or does the writer/editor not understand the word "subtle"
here?

Otherwise, that was a really beautifully done review, at least visually.

~~~
bluthru
"subtle - adjective 1. (esp. of a change or distinction) so delicate or
precise as to be difficult to analyze or describe."

The xbox one is big, bulky, and not svelte.

This extends beyond the console dimensions, however. It has an external power
brick, you can't stand it upright, and you can't stack another box on top of
it due to the fan placement. Whereas the xbox one might camouflage better with
your other AV boxes, the ps4 does a better job of subtly getting out of your
way.

------
podperson
They also thoroughly reviewed the PS4, and the review was also pretty mixed.
Overall, I'm not tempted to buy either device (10+s to wake from sleep seems
infuriating; my AppleTV takes about that long and it drives me bonkers).

My take on the next gen consoles is that it's not clear there will be any
winners. The current generation hasn't actually been profitable for either
Microsoft or Sony, and the economics of the industry have, if anything, gotten
worse. (Sure, the market is bigger, but if you're selling the platform at a
loss hoping to profit on licensing then you need the cost per game to remain
steady or go up.)

And there's the other shoe: iOS / Android / Steam / Linux. E.g. if Apple were
to release an iOS console (i.e. AppleTV on steroids) sometime in the next two
years they could leave Microsoft and Sony to eat their loss leaders and take a
huge chunk of the market away. (In general, Apple's 30% cut of games is
smaller than what the games companies pay to retailers and platform licensees,
and Apple could always lower it if necessary.)

Overall I think it's kind of a nightmare scenario:

1) Long wait since previous generation, so expectations are sky-high.

2) Each platform has been hit by at least one scandal -- PS4's bricking, Xbox
One pricing model backdown followed by 720p launch titles (WTF?!)

3) Neither platform offering elegant out-of-box solutions despite numerous
complaints with the previous generation (seriously, every time I launch my PS3
it needs to patch, and the same problem is in the PS4 and Xbox One).

4) Underwhelming launch titles.

Sony and Microsoft think they can ship a half-baked product and fix it over
the next year or two, just like it "worked" for the previous generation (that
pretty much lost them both money).

~~~
Bahamut
Agreed - I have a launch PS4, but I've been underwhelmed by the game
selection. I cancelled my Xbox One preorder a couple of weeks back over the
same concerns. I think the Wii U has a much more entertaining selection than
both at this point.

------
jheriko
"When you turn on your Xbox One, don't panic: from a cold, powered-off state,
we've clocked the system requiring a minute or more to boot into the update
screen (or the main home screen, if you've enabled power-saving mode and
disabled the system's suspend ability). Once you've run your console and
enabled suspend, things are much better: from power off to the home screen,
we've measured startup at six to 10 seconds."

hmm... they couldn't boot the system up and do this for you? or make it come
with a pre-stored 'image' for the suspend/restore? that doesn't sound like a
particularly challenging ux bug to fix...

sloppy.

not surprising from microsoft of the crashy sample code and buggy C++/Cx that
nobody needs or wants and simply adds technical debt, bugs and points of
failure all over my code - to the point where they advise you to avoid it at
all costs.

------
kosei
Reviews came in pretty much as expected: Xbox One for those looking for an
_entertainment_ system, PS4 for those looking for a _game_ system. Only issue
is that the PS4 games lineup (entire console games lineup) is sparse at
launch. Will be interesting to see how the sales numbers come in after the
first month.

------
jebus989
Does anyone think this is over-engineered? I can imagine looking back at this
in ten years as we do with blinking marquees.

I agree the artwork is really impressive but for a console review it should be
content over presentation, right? It genuinely appears that the page was a big
custom job and the prose was scratched up in an afternoon.

~~~
mattdotc
I think it's adequetly engineered if the motivation is to get people to say
"Wow" and then link the article to a friend. At the end of the day, they're
selling ads, and this page does a pretty good job at it, I think.

------
joshvm
I don't understand how they can call the Xbox One's appearance to be
dull/boring/unsubtle, when they simultaneously praise Sony's effort as
beautiful.

To me they look virtually identical. They only difference is the PS4 has a
groove in it.

------
venomsnake
After seeing what the kinect sensor is capable of - not a chance of having
such device in my house without having root on it or being able to work
completely offline. It is too creepy. And too potent.

~~~
icebraining
Doesn't seem much worse than a regular camera, is it?

~~~
venomsnake
I don't have camera on my pc. It is not the sensor that is worse but the
control over it.

Can MS turn it on remotely if hit with an lawful request? Some of these
consoles will work their way to places that are of interest for law
enforcement.

------
dodyg
|Unlike the PS4, there is absolutely no available functionality for the system
until that update is performed.

Seriously?

~~~
forgottenpass
Yup, the system software was so late and so rushed that they couldn't get the
software they wanted for launch ready in the timeframe needed for
manufacturing.

Not a huge surprise to people paying attention to consoles. More and more
games have been shipping in various states of brokenness for years. The last
generation introduced online game updates, which has become an excuse to cut
corners and fix it later. Just ship a day one patch and fuck you to anyone
without a constant, fast internet connection to their console, they're
statistically insignificant now.

------
menemragab
this may sound cliche, but i am really impressed with the website itself
rather than the Xbox. (even that i am xbox user myself) !!

------
robmcm
Scrolling is broken, I couldn't scroll to the bottom to see the score it kept
bouncing back up.

~~~
kalleboo
This kind of comment is useless without information on browser, version, OS,
etc. It works fine in the latest Safari.

~~~
robmcm
Up to date chrome on windows 7. The scrolling is broken because it dynamically
loads content as you scroll.

~~~
vidyesh
Windows 8.1

Firefox 25 : Works flawlessly.

Up to date Chrome : Works great.

Spoiler : 2x2x2

~~~
robmcm
I clicked to look at the PS4 one to compare score, in order to do that I had
to scroll to the bottom. Try refresh and then scroll to see the score as fast
as you can, scroll bar jumps all over the place.

------
ilaksh
This is obviously an advertisement rather than an actual review. I think I
know what's relevant though. Its a powerful gaming PC with a new significantly
improved although still imperfect Kinect. Anyway its funny that so many people
can't tell the difference between a commercial and a review.

~~~
nivla
>This is obviously an advertisement

Could you care to explain? From the article and the video, I got the notion
that both pros and CONS were touched.

------
crististm
That looks like a not-so-subtle full promo.

~~~
anjc
They did a similarly artistic, and glowing, review of PS4 the other week.

~~~
crististm
Selling guns to both parties is out of the question then?

