From the beginning, Microsoft made something very clear about Xbox One: it wants complete control of your home entertainment. During the controversial announcement event in May, Don Mattrick (remember him?) stepped on to the stage to tell us: "Today we put you at the centre of a new generation in the living room, where your games look and feel like nothing else, where your TV becomes more intelligent, where all of your entertainment comes alive in one place."
We've had plenty of hints about what this entails and now Microsoft is forging ahead with publicity on the Xbox One "experience", specifically, the user-interface and non-gaming entertainment options. It has announced the companies it is working with on TV and video content, and it has a new video starring Xbox vice president Marc Whitten and chief marketing officer, Yusuf Mehdi, chatting through the UI and Kinect-enhanced personalisation features. Here it is:
And here's what we've learned:
Three screen machine
It seems the unwieldy Xbox 360 interface with its multiple screens of jumbled content has been tamed. Xbox One starts up with a home screen that has a main window showing the last thing you were doing, whether that was playing a game or watching a movie. Around that are several smaller icons showing other options such as Internet Explorer, TV, games and apps.
On the left of the main screen is a sort of digital pinboard where players can store all their favourite games, films, apps or TV shows (the latter relying on the machine's live TV mode, which will become available in the UK next year). And on the right is the store, where you buy games, apps, music and films and television shows. It's clearly constructed around the Windows 8 ecosystem, which isn't going to thrill everyone, but this setup does at least answer criticisms of the Xbox 360 interface which buried games – especially indie games – on a distant menu and shoved lots of video-on-demand adverts on your opening display.
It really does know who you are
This is either going to fascinate you or creep you out entirely. As soon as the Xbox One is switched on and the Kinect enabled, it will recognise you and immediately sign you in (no need for passwords), displaying your personal settings, content and colour choices. If another member of the household walks in it will recognise and welcome them too – they'll just need to say "Xbox, show my stuff" to see their own UI set-up. If you go to a friend's house, you can also go through the 30-second recognition process on their Xbox, and from then on will get instant access to your own UI preferences on their machine.
According to Microsoft, personal biometric data is only ever stored on the console itself and can be wiped by the user, but those worried by privacy and security issues will still be concerned. The company has updated its policy on privacy and said it would fight attempts by the likes of the NSA to access Kinect data, but many remain unconvinced. There have also been reports suggesting that Microsoft will share Kinect data with advertisers, specifically the stories on Stick Twiddlers and in Advertising Age. The latter has been rejected by Microsoft, with a statement claiming: "We do not have plans to target ads or content to you based on any data Kinect collects."
Of course, there's also the concern that voiced sign-in will lead to ridiculous fights in which gamers yell, "No Xbox, show MY stuff!" at increasing volume. Although no doubt there are options to lock the speech recognition to one user.
Multi-tasking made easy
With the new Snap feature, it's possible to play two applications at once, by asking Xbox to "snap" one to a sort of picture-in-picture position at the top corner of the display. So you can hold a Skype chat while driving a Ferrari in Forza Motorsport 5, or open up the Machinima video app and watch a playthrough guide while actually attempting the game, via the Machinima Wingman mode. It's possible to pause the game, come out of it and visit other apps like Skype or Internet Explorer, before returning to exactly the same point in the action. According to Microsoft, Xbox One can also hold several other apps in memory while a game is playing, allowing super-fast switching between them.
Totally integrated TV
Microsoft has made a big deal about how users will be able to plug their cable or satellite set-top boxes into Xbox One via the HDMI In cable and watch live TV. That isn't coming to the UK until next year, but Microsoft is keen to show the benefits of running television through Xbox. Apart from being able to use voice commands and the OneGuide remote control system to select channels, you'll also receive notifications of multiplayer invites and Skype call requests at the base of the screen. So you could be watching Made in Chelsea one minute and playing Call of Duty Team Deathmatch or talking to your mum the next. We'll leave it up to you to decide whether any of this scenario is desirable. Whatever the case, the Skype integration gives you a widescreen video display of your caller, and if they're using Xbox One too, the camera pans and zooms in and out on them as they wander around chatting to you.
Entertainment partners: 13 companies ... and you
During the period between launch and spring 2014, Microsoft will roll-out the following entertainment services to UK users: 4oD, Amazon/LOVEFiLM, blinkbox, Crackle, Demand 5, Eurosport, Machinima, MUZU TV, Netflix, NOW TV, TED, Twitch and Wuaki.tv. Microsoft's video also shows how the system's GameDVR and Upload system works. The console is constantly recording the last five minutes of game footage, but you can also shout "Xbox record that" to save specific 30-second clips, which can then be edited and uploaded to Xbox Live (not YouTube). Videos can show just in-game stuff or can be combined with footage of you playing. According to Ars Technica, there are options to create videos as "video taunts", which to me sounds sort of horrible, but I suppose I'm not in the catchment demographic for that one.
Any video footage capture in this way is apparently 720p and 30 frames-per-second, although in Ars Technica's test the results were sketchy. We've yet to see how the Twitch.tv implementation works.
