XBOX One review

Microsoft has had its official #XboxReveal event, unveiling some of the details of its next generation console. In this article we've gathered together everything we know about the console, plus we're rounding up all of the latest rumours to fill in the gaps in our knowledge. Before you get started you can watch the stream of the #XboxReveal at the Major Nelson Blog, along with a ticker counting down towards the start of this year's E3 event on the 11th of June, where we'll see more of the games due to launch on the console.

Xbox one price

Price is something that Microsoft hasn't announced for the console and there are loads of rumours as to how much it will cost. Console manufacturers frequently sell their systems at a loss, making money from online services and games sales over time. Rumours suggest that both the Xbox One and PS4 consoles will ship for around $400 (roughly £250 excluding taxes), but you may have to pay more for your games compared to the current generation. Analysts have predicted that both Sony and Microsoft will charge an additional $10 per title to recoup the added development costs of working with next-generation hardware. In UK terms, this could mean a jump from £50 to £60 on some new releases.

Xbox one processor and graphics

Microsoft hasn’t released a detailed specification of the Xbox One’s innards, despite the #XboxReveal event being over, but the general consensus is that the Xbox One is using an AMD CPU and AMD graphics hardware, just like Sony’s PS4.

Using off-the-shelf components should help Microsoft build systems faster than if it was fabricating its own chips, as well as cut down the learning curve for software developers, allowing games to be released faster.

It was widely reported that one of the engineers at Microsoft’s event said that the Xbox One would have 768 compute units. That puts it it exactly in line with the pre-release leaks in terms of graphical power. The bad news is that the PS4 is confirmed to have 1,152 compute units - 50% more than the Xbox One, giving it significantly more power.

Xbox one controller

We are of the opinion that the Xbox 360 controller is among the best around, so we're glad that Microsoft hasn't changed the formula too drastically for the Xbox One. Reports that suggested the new pad would be similar, albeit with a few changes, proved right on the money. Kotaku suggested it would keep the button, trigger and analogue control stick layout as the current model, but were incorrect about a touch-sensitive strip, similar to the one shown off by Sony for its PS4 Dual Shock 4 controller, in order to add news ways to interact with games and the Xbox Dashboard.

The big improvement to the new pad has been the addition of vibration feedback in the triggers themselves. This gives very fine and immediate to your actions directly through your fingertips.

Xbox one storage and Blu-ray

Today, Blu-ray is the most widely used format for games and movies, and has enough capacity to deal with next-gen games too, so it was only natural that Microsoft made the switch for the Xbox One. The optical drive will install games to a built-in hard disk, but it was initially unclear whether it will just be used for games and won't let you play Blu-ray films. Microsoft is backing its Xbox video streaming service heavily on the current Xbox 360, so this isn't an outlandish suggestion, but thankfully the company has confirmed you'll be able to play your Blu-ray library through the console.

The Xbox One will include a 500GB mechanical hard disk as standard - something already confirmed by the most recent Durango development kit documentation leak. Although we would have loved to see a sizable SSD, which would be faster, quieter and cooler than a mechanical hard disk, price would almost certainly be a problem.

Xbox one speech recognisation

The Xbox 360 has supported voice control, using the optional Kinect camera, for some time, but the Xbox One will go a step further. Wake on voice, natural language controls and speech-to-text were just a few of the new features listed during the #XboxReveal event.

If you're an iPhone user, you might already be experienced with Natural language - it's the system used by Apple's Siri service to recognise questions, and means gamers are able to quickly reply to messages over Xbox live, resume playback from a particular point if you were half way through a film, or get recommendations on what to play based on their most frequently played game genres.

The next generation Kinect sensor will also be able to detect the number of people in a room based on voice, and suggest appropriate multiplayer games based on how many are looking to play.

Conclusion

As you can see, we’re starting to get a pretty clear picture of what to expect when the console launches later this year. We'll be updating this article as more information comes to light between now and the launch.