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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