Groucho

Either the Kinect is optional, or it's not.

If it's optional, why not sell a SKU without it?

If it's not optional, I'm not interested in the Xbox One. I don't like motion controls, and I don't want them forced on me. And I don't want a console that bricks if the $100 camera attached to it breaks.

Michael Corvin

That's the company line but even if a Kinect is disconnected, everyone still owns one and can plug it in if a game requires it. I haven't seen a single reason by anyone on the net, let alone from MS that justifies the thing being plugged in 100% of the time. A headset was a good analogy.

Personally I think devs(at least those dedicated to 'hardcore' games) are full aware that gamers hate the P.O.S. and aren't going to do much more than what we already got on Kinect outside of dance/ exercise and mini games collections.

Potential! Potential! Potential! It's all about the future! and what games may or may not have some meaningless Kinect integration...

or it's really just about selling and forcing ads down gamers' throats.

Since MS has yet to give a real reason for the forced connection, IMO, you can only point to advertising.

Music

So as long as you don't move away from the home screen, you won't see any ads.....

Draven

Then I'm going to 3D-print a Kinect connector shaped plug, sell it to One owners for a dollar and retire a millionaire.

chuckd21

Reworded news item from the PS4 thread:

Xbox One has its eye on Comic-Con

There are conflicting reports that the Xbox One will be playable to the public during San Diego Comic-Con later this month. It will mark the first time the general public will be able to go hands-on with the next-generation console since its announcement.

The PS4 will also be playable at Comic-Con.

Kinect 2.0 will be on hand to record every pre-teen cosplayer and strategic placement of the units will allow for plenty of "down-cleavage" and "up-skirt" views.

Attendees can try out the new TV interfaces and see how quickly The Price is Right can be switched over to Skype. Experts warn that the NSA will be compiling all your Price is Right viewing hours, but this is of course unsubstantiated. Microsoft revealed this week that they gleefully turned over everything they know about everything to the federal government.

Music

Spiderbite

This is an important point that I haven't heard many people mention or discuss as much you would expect.

K&AJones

And not only that...I know the odds of it happening are pretty low but what if the hard drive fails or something happens that makes it unusable....you cannot replace it yourself so send it in?

xmiyux

Most likely. Exactly like the 360.

And if the graphics card shits out on it... you'd probably have to send it back as well.

RAM... same thing.

Power brick you would just mail it back and it would be :gasp: unplayable till replaced.

If your controller breaks... you would have to buy another, send it back, or be without! The horror!

---

I know I am being snarky here but there are absolutely legitimate things to dislike about the XO and concerns to be had. It just seems beyond bizarre to me for there to be horrified reactions over things that are exactly the same as the console this one is replacing.

Heck, the last one was red ringing and the whole thing needed returned. There wasn't even time for a HDD to go out.

Music

But how would that help him with posting negatively about the One, when all the things you mentioned could happen to the PS4 as well....

xmiyux

Well the PS3 had a swappable standard HDD. The 360 had a proprietary one.

I am taking him at his word that the XO will have something proprietary as well. I have no idea if it is locked in and inaccessible to the end user or not.

edit: So it is entirely possible that the situation with the HDD could happen to the XO but not the PS4. But it isn't really different from comparing XO to 360 imo.

Music

If the One is as popular as the 360, even with a failure rate, then some people will just buy a 2nd one if they have a failure.

xmiyux

Which is admittedly kind of crappy that some were put in a position due to the design last gen to have to make the decision of buying a second one or waiting a couple weeks.

Music

True.

But if a system is overwhelmingly successful and owners cannot wait for it to be fixed, they will just buy another, One, or PS4.

MS learned from their design/engineering mistakes with the original 360s, so I don't see them having that kind of failure rate again.

Both systems should ideally have a failure rate less than that of the PS3 or current 360 Slim.

xmiyux

I don't see them making the same RRoD mistake either, but I could be naively putting trust in them.

I think they would be smart to pull a Kia and start advertising a killer warranty now to bolster confidence in the launch product.

RichC2

My main issue here is the Xbox 360 had two models out, a cheaper one and a good one. If your system crapped out you could buy the cheaper one, or find a stripped down used one to replace it (seriously, you could sell just the console and make out alright with the controllers, power brick and the HDD being sold invidiually you'd actually wind up making money in some cases).

The Xbox One hasn't announced that yet, so if your Xbox One craps out you're buying a new Kinect 2, another 500gb hard drive, etc;

chess

This is actually an excellent point.

I haven't really lived in the 360 ecosystem, so this particular utility of the "stripped" model never really occurred to me. I always saw that SKU as a way to "trick" people into getting the cheap version knowing that they'd probably be forced to buy an overpriced proprietary hard drive later, but I'll bet a ton of them were sold as hardware replacements.

To be fair, the X1 is on par with the PS4 now in this regard (with the exception of the camera), and you'd like to think that MS will offer some recourse for hardware issues, even if it isn't in stores and is direct through their own customer service. I would guess it will work sort of like Sony where you send them your core brick and $100-150, and they send you a refurb.

Also, to be fair, I had a 60GB PS3 die and had to replace the blu-ray lens in my slim, so they've hardly been trouble free. I actually think the two biggest misconceptions of the current generation were that PS3 was more reliable and that MS had better games. Maybe in 2006-2007, but not after.

RichC2

Microsoft had a ton of issues as everybody remembers, I had 4 systems replaced and it never cost me a dime. Just a few weeks of downtime (not a big deal to me though many feel differently.), at least they comp'd the month of Gold.

My only concern with the HDD thing is if it winds up not being covered under warranty. HDDs tend to have higher failure rates than other pieces of equipment, at least in my experience, so it seems logical that something like that would be user replaceable. It'd be obnoxious if Microsoft goes the Sony route and charges $130 to fix it (I have no issues with Sony in general, but have never been impressed with their out-of-warranty service costs.)

chess

My impression is that this was only the early systems and the failure rate after that was about normal for a consumer electronic device.

Agree that there is nothing positive about proprietary memory. Period.

I think it all depends on the failure rate. The higher it is, the more important it is that you get the service and charges right. To their credit, MS stepped up, but they really had to given their early failure rate. But if my PS3 is among the (making up a number here) 2% that die after literally thousands of hours of use, I don't think it's fair for me to hold Sony to the same standard.

RichC2

Early systems is subjective, honestly it wasn't until the Falcon systems came out in late 2007 that the RROD started to truly dissipate.

Launch units would have been one thing, but 2 years is a long time.

chuckd21

I'm just impressed that everyone is so pissed off about Microsoft's bullshit that "BUT WHAT IF IT BREAKS LIKE THE LAST ONE?!?!?!?" is barely a blip on the radar.

K&AJones

I still have my original 360 from Oct 2006. I've repaired the RROD twice myself and opened up the case four times. It had the original mega "13gb" hard drive I upgraded (250gb).

Point is with the 360 one could do mods, repairs and upgrades themselves after the warranty ran out or even prior. I assume after the XO is released ways of opening the XO and doing something will come about but just how much will MS make the XO Tamper Proof?

The early issues with the 360 was heat via air circulation and the famous Power Brick fizzing out. Then later it was heat buildup with the heat-sink which anyone with some degree of common sense could fix themselves. I've only seen one picture of the XO opened up showing the layout, hard drive location and a good size fan on top.

Can't tell but the hard drive is in the rear and maybe connected via SATA cable(?). Doesn't look like much as to mounting and un-mounting the drive. Probably easier than taking one out of a tower case. From what I've read it'll have three OS on the drive to handle various functions. Wondering if they'll have a way to do a complete backup via a USB Drive including the OS?

RichC2

I think most people expect it to be a non-issue, but those rumors of production issues and us just now getting "RAM speeds yielding better results in production models!" suggest they really are a bit behind.

chess

Three operating systems? Seriously? Doing what?

And please tell me Windows isn't one of them.

Music

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_One

Operating system

The device will run three operating systems: Xbox OS, an OS based on the Windows kernel, and another OS that will allow the other two operating systems to communicate by virtualisation (as a hypervisor). Such integration will include features like snapped Skype calls while in game.

The Windows edition on the Xbox will not be compatible with standard Windows apps, though developers will be able to port them over with little effort.