XBOX One reveal thoughts.

“It is a tale

told by an idiot, full of sound and fury

signifying nothing.”

-Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5)

        As you probably know, the new Xbox was revealed recently at MS headquarters. Like any self respecting game developer or obsessive gamer (or both, in my case), I was watching with bated breath and anticipation. As the event started, I began taking notes as fast as I could write them on what I was seeing. What follows are those notes in mostly chronological order from the beginning of the show (plus additional thoughts for clarification).

1. Oh my god, EMOTION! (already? haven’t I seen this press conference before?)
2. “You and your TV are going to have a relationship,” Huh. Well that’s weird, Microsoft. Will it complain if I play games too much?
3. MY TV. MY movies. MY games. MY targeted advertising. MY entitlement to MY instant entertainment. BUT I WANT AN OOMPA LOOMPA NAOOOOW! (Seriously, can we stop with the “MY” stuff? It’s a bit disingenuous when, in the state of media consumption today, nothing is actually yours at all. But I digress, that is a different post entirely.)
4. “Stop just watching and start feeling...alive.” Microsoft thinks I feel dead inside because I can’t interact with my media hard enough. If the XBOX actually makes someone feel more alive, they have much larger problems than the speed or interactivity with which their entertainment is delivered.
5. “...where your games look like nothing else...” Except for, you know, PS4 and PC...but those don’t count, because Kinect.
6. XBOX: Solving problems that don’t exist. “Can we take what you love and make it better?” Possibly, I’m listening. “Can we improve a living room that has become too complex, too fragmented, and too slow, by harmonizing your experiences?” Uhh. What? My living room is pretty damn fast. I’ve got 500 channels of TV, countless shows and movies on demand, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video, Playstaion Network, XBOX Live, and many more ways to instantly be entertained. This is not a problem, Microsoft. Also, smart TVs are (almost) a one stop shop for all of those things (they can’t play games but that’s what consoles are for...at least that’s what they used to be for...). You are trying to create solutions to problems where none exist. And I still haven’t seen any games in this presentation.
7. The all in one system is a new mission? Bullshit. I’ve been hearing that crap for years. It’s one thing to say that you are closer than ever to your years long goal of the all in one box. It’s another to flat out lie and act like this is a new idea. Microsoft has a history of assuming the consumer is an idiot and this proves that they have not changed a bit.
8. The reveal video: Oh my god, they have taken the TV thing so far that they made the console a VCR. It literally looks like a VCR. And not a new(er) one. It looks like a behemoth from 1983. It is a massive black box. We went from the sleek, sexy, concave, white and chrome of the original 360, to the black, angular, but still visually arresting Slim to....a monolithic black box from 1983. It’s massive. And it’s hideous. And massive.
9. At least the controller is sexy. I love that. Dem sticks!
10. “Simple. Instant. Complete.” Okay, I’m with you on the first 2, but what does “complete” mean in this context? In what context are you even using the word? And what does that context imply? Was the 360 incomplete? What makes this system complete? Kinect? Smart Glass? I really liked my Xbox more without all that extraneous crap, so was my experience somehow incomplete? Oh right. It’s just PR bullshit that means nothing. Moving on.
11. “At XBOX, we love gaming.” Rad. Can we see some now? Oh, we are still talking about TV. I’ll just be over here....
12. Wait, you are taking your passion for gaming and applying it to TV? What the fuck does that even mean? No matter how you try to spin this with a gaming slant, this reveal has been about a glorified cable box and nothing more. Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining, Microsoft. This TV stuff has absolutely zero to do with gaming.
13. Talking to your TV is still not as convenient as a button.
14. “...it should be simple, but today, it isn’t. Because of switching inputs.” So watching TV is hard because of switching inputs? Microsoft really does consider us idiots, don’t they? Switching inputs is one button. One button. We’ve been doing it since the 80s. To wit, we’ve been doing it quicker and easier since the 80s because talking to your TV is still not as convenient as a god damned button!
15. Good god. Now we have universal gestures. Do I need to say it again? Dropping your controller to wave your arms around is not as convenient as a button. This is getting ridiculous. Yes, Minority Report looked cool, but man would it suck to really have to deal with an interface like that. Microsoft seems determined to make that tiring, inefficient UI a reality. Because, the future.
16. Snap mode for multitasking. Want to search Bing with Internet Explorer (god, I hope you don’t....) while watching a movie? Do it with Snap Mode! You can use your phone as a remote! But wait a second, if you’ve got a smart phone you are using as a remote, why not just use the smart phone to do the searching and save screen real estate on your TV. The phone (hopefully) isn’t using IE either, so it’s got that going for it too! Another useless feature full of sound and fury....
17. “Now I’m going to introduce you to another amazing thing you can do on your XBOX. Skype.” BWAhahahhhhaaaaahahahahaaaaahoohohohhhhhuehuehueee...*AHEM* Right, I mean uhh...The future is here. Srsly. Skype, ladies and gentlemen. Skype. The future. Is. Here.
18. Blah blah ESPN Fantasy integration. WOO. Is it a bad feature? Nope. Is it a system seller? Nope. Do I give a fuck? Nope.
19. The biggest challenge with TV is finding something to watch? No, Microsoft. Just no. I’ve got cable telling me what to watch, I’ve got Amazon telling me what to watch, I’ve got Hulu and Netflix telling me what to watch. I don’t need another way to find out what I should watch (it’s always the same crap suggestions anyway... I mean, look, I don’t like Game of Thrones. Seriously. I know I’m the only one. I tried. It’s rapey. And incesty. Not my thing.).
20. What was that, Microsoft? Did you just say games? You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
21. 5 billion transistors? Good lord, man. Where do I sign up?
22. XBOX One architecture: 3 operating systems in one box. Yessir, 3 Microsoft operating systems in one console. What could possibly go wrong?
23. Half an hour in. Still no games.
24. Oh hey, look! Smart glass! And still no one cares.
25. Is he about to introduce someone from the gaming industry? He is! YES! This is rad, we are going to see some gam- oh it’s EA Sports.
26. New EA Sports engine! Looks....remarkably similar to current gen with only marginal upgrades to fidelity and quality. That’s disheartening.
27. In a move that surprises absolutely no one, a new Forza game is shown! Also, only looks slightly better than current gen (and only looks to be about on par with current PC racing games). But hey, it’s a confirmed launch title so there will be at least one title to play at launch!
28. Next is Quantum Break from Remedy. It somehow manages to be less cool looking than the Alan Wake announce trailer from 2005 (or 06?) and makes a shipwreck boring. How does this happen?
29. 15 exclusives and 8 new IPs all releasing in the first year? This I can get behind. That is the single best thing said so far in this announcement clusterfuck.
30. Bring on more games! Wait, TV again? I’m beginning to think I’ve wasted my time here today.
31. “Our mission is to transform television.” That pretty much sums up the whole presentation, doesn’t it?
32. 2 women on stage at one time? Take that, Sony! (Seriously, I’m genuinely happy to see this.)
33. So we are getting a live action Halo TV show. And it has been created “in partnership” with Steven Spielberg. Wow, Steven Spielberg, that’s cool! But what, exactly, does “in partnership” mean? Is he a producer? A director? A creative consultant? Just a cool name to put on the credits? A talking head? Who knows? And Microsoft isn’t saying. At least not yet.
34. Oh yay! More sports! Announcing an NFL partnership so you can....you know....watch harder. Man, it’s so extreme!
35. Wait, that was it? This sounds like the end of the show. Where was the....oh....oh there it is. A Call of Duty trailer to close the show. Joy.
36. Oh look! Mantling over short walls! Leaning around corners! How have we lived without this for so long? Oh right, we haven’t. These are not innovations. This is just shit they can do like everybody else now because they are no longer using a modified version of the Quake 3 engine (seriously).
37. COD, stop talking. Character customization is not innovation! Oh god, why are they still talking?

What they got right:

        I feel like they reacted properly to some of the negativity surrounding the PS4’s heavily social focus and focused more on the XBOX being a media consumption machine. This is good. I certainly don’t need social everything everywhere at all times and frankly I don’t even want it. Sometimes I just want to watch a movie. And if you take away one thing from this reveal, it should be that XBOX One can certainly give you tons of shit to watch. TELEVISION.

        15 exclusive games and 8 new IPs in the first year is nothing to turn your nose up at, either. In fact it’s pretty good, considering. I am personally hoping that most of those will be exclusives that gamers like myself actually care about and not something like “Dance, Motherfucker 15: Dance Your Pantz Off”. To each their own, I suppose.

        The controller looks great. It keeps the form factor of the previous one, but has classy looking but subtle upgrades. The textured grip around the concave analog sticks is just plain sexy and they seem to have learned their lesson on the d-pad. One thing the 360 always got right (except for the d-pad) was the controller and they look to be continuing that tradition here.

        Oh, and one last thing I think they got right: females. On the stage. I was not offended that Sony had no women on stage nor do I believe that it was a conscious decision on their part to exclude women, however, I do think it was unfortunate and signatory of a deeper problem facing our industry. But, I digress.

What they got wrong:

        Everything else. Where were the games? One of the few things that Sony got right in their presentation was that the focus was on games. Yes, the PS4 could do lots of social things that, arguably, most people will never or rarely use, but the vast majority of those social things were directly tied to games. The XBOX on the other hand, was so far up television’s ass that it lost sight of what the main point of their box is: the games. Then, when we did finally get to see some games, they were not overly impressive (to be fair, neither were Sony’s games). The EA Sports guy talked up the same crap we’ve been hearing about 3d engines since they were invented: realism. Honestly, we expect things to improve from generation to generation, and hyperbole about realism just doesn’t impress at this point. Especially when what we see on display is only incrementally better than what we can get out of current PCs.

        The form factor is atrocious. I am all for minimalism and clean lines, but there is a fine line between minimalism and a box. This is a box. And a huge one at that. It truly does look like a VCR and, strangely enough, seems to be a direct descendant of one in its main functionality: delivering video on demand.

        The laser focus on television is a severe problem on a few levels. I swear the first half of that presentation was spent trying to convince us of the evils of the remote control. Microsoft is here to save us from ourselves because we, the unwashed masses, are unable to understand basic television functionality. “BUTTONS! THUMBZ R HARD. TV, HAPL PLZ>” we seem to say in our plebeian vernacular. Thank god we have Microsoft to save us from all that messy button pushing. Firstly, the problems they are addressing just don’t exist. We aren’t that stupid, and frankly, the buttons are faster than hand flailing or talking to your TV. It is, I believe, indicative of much farther reaching problem that they are focusing so hard on things that most smart TVs already do. None of this is new. And you don’t even have to wave your hands around or talk to inanimate objects with smart TVs. You just press buttons. Moving only your thumbs. So easy and convenient. Smart TVs are growing quickly and by the end of this console generation, I doubt that there will be many TVs left that don’t have some sort of internet functionality. Which leaves Microsoft in a tough spot. At the beginning of a console cycle, to focus on something that is already somewhat standard and call it innovation because you interact with it in a novel, but wholly inconvenient way is folly. The foundation of the XBOX should be games, but the foundation they are building on right now (essentially smart tv functionality) is sinking sand. When that foundation is gone (and it will be sooner than later) what’s left are the games. And they were notably sparse here. Enough to give one pause.

The takeaway:

        I can sum up my takeaway on this pretty simply. During the presentation, they mentioned that there were 3 main pillars (that’s what I’m calling them, at least) of interaction with the XBOX. The Kinect, Smart Glass, and the controller. 2 out of the 3 of those pillars require you to put down the main controller of your console. That is a severe problem, in my opinion. This box will primarily be used to play games, but the functionality of playing those games seems to have been put on the back burner in favor of this television console that Microsoft is now peddling. This is no longer a game console, and they don’t even want you to think it is. It’s a magical TV box that happens to play games.

“Our mission is to transform television.” XBOX One reveal, 2013