Do you live in Portugal, the Czech Republic, South Africa, South Korea, China or India and want to play on your Xbox One this holiday season? Well, you’re completely SOL.
Microsoft has posted a list of 21 countries which is calls Xbox One-supported Xbox Live countries which are the only countries where you can access Xbox Live from your Xbox One to activate games and perform the required online check-in to play games when the console launches in November.
After getting all of the ugly business about DRM, used games, TV, apps and always-connected Kinect out of the way before E3, Microsoft got down to the business of trying to actually trying to sell the upcoming Xbox One as a gaming console.
For their E3 press event, Microsoft came at us with scads of games, both multi-platform and exclusive to the Xbox One to make us forget about all the bad press about the last few months leading up to today’s big showing. Well, until they announced the launch price.
The Microsoft keynote event at E3 is about to begin and it doesn’t really matter. Over the last few weeks, Microsoft has repeatedly shot itself in the foot when promoting their upcoming Xbox One. They think that they can do no wrong with their next-gen console but the reality is that the can do nothing right.
Microsoft is walking into E3 thinking that they’re Justin Bieber, they’re on top of the world and full of swagger. They are Justin Bieber but everyone sees them as Justin Bieber, self-important douche, with a bit of Amanda Bynes’ delusional separation from reality.
Having written my dream announcements list for the PlayStation 4’s keynote at E3, I thought that it would only be fair to give Microsoft’s new console equal time with their own list of dream announcements for the Xbox One.
Now, I’m not an Xbox guy. I’ve never owned either of the Xbox consoles but at one point considered getting the Xbone before the official unveil. However, that unveiling had nothing that appealed to me. So for my dream announcements for the X1, I’ll try to balance between dream announcements for those firmly in Xbox’s camp and those still not sold in the Xbox One.
A recent report by Polygon suggests that the Xbox One could find new ways to annoy the hardcore gamer. While they’re humming and hawing over used games, Polygon’s sources are talking about the XBOne’s iteration of Kinect being a little bit like Apple’s Siri program. However, it seems to be that it’s a bit closer to HAL 9000 than Siri.
Having had a few days to digest the two very different launch events for Sony’s PlayStation 4 and Microsoft’s Xbox One, I’ve come to a realization. As much as people don’t seem to like the Xbox launch, it wasn’t a failure in and of itself. In fact, I believe that Microsoft successfully accomplished what it set out to do.
The Xbox One and PlayStation Four both play video games. However, if you were to watch the two launch events, I’d understand if you were a little confused by that statement. While the PlayStation 4’s launch emphasised how it plays games and how it augments that with the social networking and sharing features, the Xbox spent comparatively little time talking about the games.
The difference in the launches was an example of how the console manufacturers are positioning their next-gen consoles in the market.
I’ve been thinking about why Microsoft was going more casual with the Xbox One and this infographic gets at the reasoning behind that move. It all comes down to money. When you see what the best-selling console of the last generation was and know what it did best, it all makes sense.
To examine the shifting balance of power in the gaming industry and its growth, we have a handy infographic for you.
Okay, I might have come off a bit cynical in my examination of the Xbox One announcement. In fairness, I tried the best I could given the information at hand. There just wasn’t a lot of talk about games. Don’t take my word for it. Check out this short summary of the Xbox One reveal.
Microsoft didn’t hide that yesterday’s big announcement would be for the next-gen Xbox but they sure did manage to surprise with that name. The third-generation Xbox console is the Xbox One whose name represents that it’s an all-in-one system for the living room.
It was that all-in-one nature of the Xbox One that formed the majority of Microsoft’s presentation. Unfortunately, that emphasis on the all-in-one Xbox came at what was essentially the de-emphasis of games as the core of the Xbox One.
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We’re just a short few hours from the big next-generation Xbox console. I’d like to say that it’s going to be the Xbox 720 but we really don’t know what it will be called yet. Heck, two weeks ago, we were all convinced that it would be called the Xbox Infinity before we found out that the name and logo was a hoax.
Before we all gather ’round to watch Microsoft’s big show, we take a look at the news and rumours about the final next-gen console to be revealed.
et geekera 