XBox One First Impressions

I picked up an XBox One at 12:35am on Nov 22 from my local Microsoft retail store. Since I had pre-ordered a unit, I went straight to the desk where they promptly gave me unit #142.

 All the pre-order customers had a specific console reserved for them, and they called out the customer names starting at midnight through a store-wide PA system as though they were announcing the birth of a child. It was apparently quite a party that started at 10pm in the store.  I was actually playing Call of Duty Ghost on my XBox 360 that night with a friend, so I decided to skip the party and went strictly for the pickup.

I immediately connected the XBox One to my living room entertainment system, downloaded the system software update (which I vaguely recall was about 500MB), calibrated the Kinect, and installed some apps. Over the past 3 days, I have played with a number of games and apps including Call of Duty Ghosts, Forza 5, XBox Fitness, Netflix, Hulu Plus, SkyDrive, and the NFL App.  Here are my first impressions, with the larger conclusion at the end.

Hardware

• I actually like the rectangular design of the console, because it is an efficient design for putting into a hidden cabinet. The shiny surfaces do seem to attract dust quite easily, but not an issue for me since the console can't be seen in my cabinet.
• Unlike the XBox 360, this console is very quiet. The large (112mm) main cooling fan exhausts hot air through the top vent, and even when stressing the system by playing Call of Duty, it did not spin up louder than a whisper (though I do crack my cabinet door open slightly when playing for ventilation).
• The Kinect wide angle lens and 1080p camera is quite nice, definitely supports a larger "play area" compared to the previous gen Kinect.
• They nailed the design of the controller! The D-Pad is clicky-licious. I noticed that there is a small noise that sounds like a small steel spring being twisted when I use the D-Pad, so that's the one little nit I can give. The individual rumble motors in the triggers are quite effective in conveying a richer "3D" haptic experience for games like Forza.

System Software

• The Windows 8 style tile UI is pretty nice and responsive, and they've made it simple with just 3 sections: 1) Your customized Pins, 2) Home (which mainly shows most recently used apps), and 3) Store.
• I cannot find a download queue menu (which is available on the XBox 360), which would be helpful to give me an idea how long I have to wait, or give me the option to cancel the huge game download because I want to download something else first. This was the case when I first queued up the 40GB download for Call of Duty Ghosts, then added the Blu-ray player app download after.  I didn't want to wait for the game download before testing the Blu-ray player, and it seemed to do the downloads one app at a time. After playing around, I found that the only way to see your download progress is to navigate to the specific app you queued for download (such as by going to the Store), and there it will show your download progress instead of the "Buy" button. I find this annoying that it does not give me a single aggregated view of all my downloads to manage their order.
• I also cannot find a menu to show me how much space I have left on my hard drive. Microsoft has acknowledged this missing feature and has told us they'll be bringing it in the future. Given that games are typically between 10-40GB each, the 500 GB drive can fill up after about 15 game installs. Personally, I find that I actively only play a few games, so I don't mind just deleting old games to manage the storage, while having the option to re-download later. Microsoft will enable external USB drives to be attached, and I hope they allow us to attach any third party external drive (vs. only a much more expensive Microsoft branded external drive, or those that are "officially certified" for XBox One).
• The system software definitely has room for improvements, but it's reasonably stable. I ran into a few bugs and hangs including:

1. A few times it did not come out of stand by, so I had to do a hard reboot by holding in the power button on the front panel. The system will typically shut down into a standby mode where it wakes up fairly quickly, initially showing a black screen and the "X" ball logo briefly before presenting the home screen (takes 15 secs to go from standby to home screen). When in standby, it listens for the "Xbox On" voice command, and I'm guessing it also checks in with the XBox servers for updates to download and install. If you unplug the system and turn it on (a cold boot), it first shows a green background screen with the XBox logo, then shows the black screen with the X ball logo and then the home screen. This "cold boot" sequence obviously takes longer (about 55 seconds to home screen).
2. When trying to edit my son's avatar, it gave me a black screen with a spinning wheel for about 30 seconds, then displayed an error message saying something's wrong and I should try again later. It worked fine when editing my own avatar, and rebooting the system didn't fix it. I was able to edit his avatar the next day though.

Kinect

• Kinect voice command is not reliable for a normal household environment. It has a hard time hearing the command if there is a lot of background noise (like if you're playing a game or watching TV at high volume, or have kids screaming and playing). I was disappointed that the voice command (at this point) does not support "natural" commands like Google Now where say anything (like "Show me racing games") and it figures out what you're trying to do. Instead, you have to stick to a preset syntax, but it does not tell you what that syntax is until you have tried several times and it fails to understand you (and even then, it only gives you some examples based on what it thinks you're trying to do). Fortunately, Microsoft's Major Nelson just published the secret decoder ring that lists the Kinect voice commands and gestures.
• The ability for Kinect to recognize you is very cool. This allows it to automatically sign you in, or recognize who is issuing a voice command and show content specific for that user.  For example, I can be signed in, but then my son (who has his own XBox Live account) can walk in the room and say "Xbox, Show My Home" and it will then show his personalized home screen. This made for some amusing battles where we yell at the Kinect and try to get it to obey us. However, the automatic face detection is not consistently reliable. Sometimes it would see me quickly, sometime I would stand there for a while and nothing. However, it never mis-identified a person.
• Gaming Fail: We experiencing a horribly frustrating sign-in failure when 4 kids were taking turns sharing 2 controllers while playing the Lego Avengers game. Intermittently in the middle of the game, it would get stuck on a perpetual sign-in dialog loop. It starts with a sign-in screen being presented, requiring me to selecting a user profile, going through a facial identification validation screen, and would then finally return to the game. But after returning to the game, it would keep bringing up the sign-in screen as soon as any controller button was pressed. There was nothing I could do to get out of this perpetual loop! My guess is that it had to do with the kids taking turns sharing the 2 controllers, and the Kinect was trying to be clever and force the player to sign-in if it didn't recognize who the new holder of the controller was. The only way I could fix it was to quit the game, unplug the Kinect, then re-launch.

HDMI-Input Feature

The HDMI-input feature where the XBox One serves as your single box to manage all your content including broadcast TV (such as from cable & satellite) is rough and not usable (yet). Two specific fails I experienced were: (i) trying to interface with my Windows Media Center PC as the TV source, and (ii) getting it to power on and off my other home theater devices.

1. Windows Media Center PC support:  Ironically, support for a Windows Media Center PC as an external TV box is horrible. The way it "controls" your external cable (or satellite) TV box is that you enter the model number of your cable box, and it has a database of the remote control IR signals for doing things like changing channels. To make your cable box change channels, it uses the Kinect to blast the IR signal which will bounce around the room's walls and hit your cable box (so long as your cable box is not hidden in a cabinet). We are used to thinking that you have to point your remote control at the device because most remote controls emit out a relatively weak IR signal for the sake of battery life. But if power is not a constraint, the IR signal can be pointed almost anywhere in your room and will fairly reliably reflect back to the intended device. This is slick and generally avoids the need to wire up physical IR repeaters (though that is an option with XBox One). For a Windows Media Center PC, changing the digital ATSC channel requires issuing a command like "5.1".  The XBox One only sends a "5" signal which won't do anything. What's more frustrating is that a Media Center PC is in its database, but the remote control IR database is wrong (and it knows that my TV source is antenna). I bet it works great with a typical cable or satellite box, though.  Microsoft has stated that the XBox One will not act as a Windows Media Center Extender like the XBox 360, which would have done the job nicely. I believe this is because relatively few XBox users out there actually use a Windows Media Center PC or antenna for watching TV, and they are looking to retire the Windows Media Center software and focus on getting dedicated video apps.
2. Powering on/off other devices: The Xbox One's database of IR signals for other devices is pretty basic and not nearly as good as a universal remote control like Logitech Harmony. I initially told it to go ahead and control the power for my TV and AV receiver (where it turns them on and off when I turn the console on and off).  The right way to do this is that it should send the discrete "Power On" or "Power Off" IR command to my TV and receiver (note: while your TV's remote control only has a power toggle button, almost all modern CE devices support distinct Power On and Power Off IR commands, but TV makers choose not to put this on their remotes to save space and for ease of use). But the XBox One only sends the power toggle IR command, not the discrete "Power On" or "Power Off" IR command. So if I already have my TV or AV receiver on because I was watching a show on my Apple TV, and then I turn on the XBox One, the console will then end up turning the TV and AV receiver off. This is an easy thing to fix with a software update, but I'm disappointed that they didn't think of this from the start.
3. Overscan: This is minor compliant, but my media PC video had a small black border when viewing it on the XBox One's HDMI input. This means that I'm not watching true full screen video, and part of my TV's screen is being wasted. I could not compensate for this by going into the media PC's overscan compensation settings. It seems that the XBox One's EDID information on HDMI reports a fixed amount of overscan, which forces the HDMI source (my media PC in this case) to apply overscan. Yet another minor bug which could probably be addressed with a software update.

NFL App

• Microsoft's $400M partnership with the NFL for exclusive content is not rocking my world. The NFL app is pretty cool, but I was very disappointed that the live metadata service (to show you real time metadata while watching a live game) only works if you authenticate with a paid subscription service with ATT, Verizon, and a few other service providers (oddly, Comcast was not an option, though I'm sure it's coming). Users who legitimately watch NFL games on antenna broadcast are not invited to the party as I found out last night while watching the Bronco's lose their 24-0 lead against the Pats.

XBox Fitness

• I expect that XBox Fitness will eventually become a paid service (on top of the $60/year XBox Live Gold service), but they made it free for Xbox Live Gold members for the time being. I'm guessing there are around 30 different workouts available in the XBox Fitness library now, organized in numerous categories such as length of workout (10 mins, under 20 mins, over 20 mins), by the creator (Jillian Michaels, Beach Body, Tracy Anderson), or Popular Now. Many of the workouts are free, but some are paid (though all have a free "demo" workout). For example, the Jillian Michaels Extreme Shed and Shred costs $9 for 2 workouts. On the higher end, there are Tracy Anderson bundles (with 4 workouts) that cost $30. It looks to me that the exercise creators provide a few of their workouts for free, with the hope that you'll pay to get the rest of their content.  I don't know for sure, but I believe they are all the same videos used in the DVDs (this is the case with the 2 P90X workouts in the library).
• I did the P90X Shoulder and Arms workout (I'm an avid P90X exercise buff), which uses the exact same video in first DVD release of P90X from 10 years ago (in 2003). The XBox One leverages the Kinect to check your form and your pace of doing the reps, and lets you know if you are falling short vs. doing well. The feedback comes in the form of a color wheel that fills up and becomes green if you're on track, becomes partially filled and yellow if you're too slow or not using proper form, and is red and mostly empty if you're barely doing anything. In addition, it displays a pop up toast message in the 3 feedback colors (red for bad, yellow for need improvement, green for good) such as "Good form!" or "Lift to shoulder height." It caught me doing a shoulder exercise with bad form (giving me a yellow circle and toast message), which made me use a lower weight the next time around to achieve proper form and get rewarded with the green circle. As you do the reps, a "credit" number fills up much like the Rockband or Guitar Hero games. The number fills at a faster rate when you're doing a better job working out (with a full green circle), and it stops filling when you stop doing the reps, which incentivizes you to do as many reps as possible. A few exercises presented a challenge, showing a bar of what average men in my age range can do for the particular exercise, and you try to keep doing more reps to fill in your bar and exceed the average score, which gives you more credit points. You can, however, cheat the point system by using very light or even no weights while doing the motion of the reps (I tried this, and my son promptly pointed out that I'm cheating).
• On the social side, the XBox One keeps a record of your score for that particular workout, and for each specific exercise you did, so that you have data to show if you are improving (or perhaps to push you harder the next time). It also will show your overall XBox Fitness score along side your Xbox Live friends. It has all kinds of challenges and bonuses for working out multiple times a week, so there are plenty of rewards to incentivize you to do it.

SkyDrive

The SkyDrive app is currently just a simple photo and video viewer. It accesses my SkyDrive and lets me navigate the various folders to views photos and videos, and hides any non-photo or non-video files. It will also let you see media shared from your friend's SkyDrive. The slideshow was nice, but I found it lacking by not playing back music (or letting me choose background music), and it would only do a slideshow of specific folders deeper in the folder hierarchy. For example, it would not let me do a slideshow of all photos in my entire SkyDrive, but made me drill down into the folders a few levels before presenting the options to display as a slide show.

Games

• Digital vs Disc: I hate buying any physical media because you can lose it, it can get damaged, and you have to burn gas to receive it. I was disappointed when Microsoft was forced to reverse their decision about letting you trade or sell your XBox One game discs. I haven't bought a physical game disc for PC for 4+ years since getting a Steam account, and I love the fact that I never have to worry about finding the game disc, the game install key, or having the disc get damaged. With XBox One, I plan to only buy my games digitally so that I can experience the same convenience (along with not having to go to a store). It looks like Microsoft is requiring all the game developers to allow their games to be bought digitally in the XBox Store, so I hope this means I'll never buy a game disc again... ever.  (Bonus: games installed on your hard drive launch a lot faster than those which require the console to read the disc)
• Eye Candy: Yes, the new hardware makes the visual quality of the games perceivably better than the XBox 360, which you would expect for hardware that is 8 years newer. When XBox 360 came out, its compute and graphics hardware was on par with the highest end gaming PCs at the time. With XBox One, its hardware is similar to a modern mid-end gaming PC, which is still quite good, but not the aggressive play they made in the previous generation. I played through the Call of Duty Ghosts campaign, and while that game is rendered in 720p and upscaled to 1080p, I never found myself feeling the visual quality was lacking. Forza 5 was perhaps more impressive with all the lighting and texture detail on the windshield and car bodies. My take is that the hardware is "good enough" for a great modern gaming experience, but I'll be keeping my gaming PC for benchmarking to see how much that quality gap widens over time.

Conclusion  

• Excellent underlying hardware and platform software. Microsoft has laid a solid foundation for this to become a really good gaming and media box for years to come.
• Current platform software is still young and has plenty of room for refinement and improved functionality. I expect to see frequent system software updates for the first 6 months.
• Existing apps and titles are good for showing off the hardware, but as expected for a new platform, not yet enough to make me stop using the Xbox 360 as my primary gaming machine.
• I expect that I'll start to mothball the XBox 360 in Q1 2014 when (i) the new hot game titles are released (Titanfall, Halo 5 , and Destiny), (ii)  the rest of my friends have gotten their XBox Ones, and (iii) Microsoft has made more system updates to address reliability and HDMI-input capabilities.