Xbox One Console Thread

[EvilBoris]

MS are quite good at hitting release dates for things from my experience.

They were really great at hitting the release date for Master Chief Collection, shame they forgot to finish it.

[MattyP]

They were really great at hitting the release date for Master Chief Collection, shame they forgot to finish it.

Had no problems playing the campaign at the moment...

Yeah the multiplayer has (had?) issues...

Their track record has been great from my experience on 360 and XBO this far...

[Kryptonian]

You don't think both Xbox Live and PSN would represent horrible value without the free games? I find it shocking that Microsoft were charging so much for so little for so long.

I thought just over £3 a month for a reliable online service was alright - I didn't see it as 'so much for so little' at all.

[Yoshimax]

I think you're missing the point, that games being given away free makes for the view that games aren't worth spending money on. It's possible that for every indie developer who isn't complaining about their game being given away for free there are lots of other games not being bought because the people who might have bought a game are instead hedging their bets on it being given away for free in the future.

I wouldn't be surprised if the effect of free games is a greater number of games with in app purchases, which even if you're in favour of free games, has got to be a bad thing.

Yeah it annoys me I've paid for several games now that have subsequently gone free - they should stop that practice and only offer stuff that hasn't been on the store yet because as you say it dissuades impulse purchasing of the indie stuff imo.

[Revival]

Completely agree.

[Pob]

So what does the TV pass through thing do these days? I don't have a Sky box or anything or even a TV licence at the moment, but if I got a new TV with Freeview HD tuner, can I pipe that through the XB1?

[gooner4life]

You would need to buy the freeview tuner for the Xbox one or another separate box, you can't pass through the tv's internal TV tuner

[Pob]

Right, cheers. So I get this thing:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Official-Xbox-One-Digital-Tuner/dp/B00E97HVJI

Which is basically the Xbox equivalent of PS3's PlayTV? And the pass-through thing is only used for controlling other set-top boxes?

[gooner4life]

yeah exactly.

The pass-through just let's you plug the HDMI out of your STB into the Xbox One, if you want to see whether it's worthwhile, you can use the OneGuide without a Pass-Through being connected, to see if you think it's worth getting.

[Aphex Tim]

Right, cheers. So I get this thing:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Official-Xbox-One-Digital-Tuner/dp/B00E97HVJI

Which is basically the Xbox equivalent of PS3's PlayTV? And the pass-through thing is only used for controlling other set-top boxes?

It's really good the TV tuner. Works flawlessly, nice UI and you can set the XBone to play TV by default when you switch it on, which is a nice feature if it's in the living room and you have others who might not be as shall we say technologically minded. Turn it on and there's telly there. Only downer is you can't record anything, but you can pause. And of course you've got all the catch up apps (besides ITV's bizarre omission on most platforms) to view anything you missed.

[Revival]

Yeah it annoys me I've paid for several games now that have subsequently gone free - they should stop that practice and only offer stuff that hasn't been on the store yet because as you say it dissuades impulse purchasing of the indie stuff imo.

https://xbox.uservoice.com/forums/251647-gaming-achievements/suggestions/6923398-change-games-with-gold-to-be-fair-to-the-gamers-wh

[peeveen]

(besides ITV's bizarre omission on most platforms)

STV Player appeared on Xbox 360 last month. I guess it can't be far away for the whole of ITV on the newer platforms.

My spare 360 is now serving the upstairs bedroom with iPlayer, STV Player, 4oD, Demand 5, YouTube, and Eurosport Player. Tasty.

Incidentally, if any non-Scots are wanting ITV Player on their 360, just get STV player. It asks you for a postcode to verify, just google for any Scottish postcode. We get all the main ITV shows, it's not all White Heather Club and Take The High Road you know!

[McCoy]

So I purchased a Xbox One in the past week and have had a few days with it and thought I would share some comments.

Firstly, I really like the interface. I noted Smitty's recent comments about it being hard to find stuff but I haven't found that the case at all. I like pinning items to the left of the screen and once you've got a few pins there it becomes like the Wii menu with a nice selection of visual icons to choose from. I'm almost sad that MS didn't carry through their initial idea of allowing you to install disc games once and then not need the disc again. Apps, games etc. have all been easy to find and search for. I'd actually say the promotions and adverts are less intrusive than they were on the 360. I don't have Kinnect and can see how voice commands would work quite well but it is not important enough for me to want to either buy a Kinnect or have yet another slap of equipment under the TV. A controller with a microphone would work well though.

The controller is fine so far. Very similar to the 360, indeed so similar that I'm not sure why they didn't just keep the 360 controller which was great. Not sure about the surface of the sticks, after a few hours of play they seemed slightly abrasive when compared to the completely smooth 360 sticks surfaces.

Looks like every game has to be installed into the hard drive? I mention this because after downloading 4 complete games, a demo and installing three retail games I'm down to about 20% free space. Sort of makes a mockery of MS drive to be digital when with the games sizes these days even the supplied 500GB gets filled very quickly. If they were serious about us becoming digitally minded they should have shipped with a larger drive. I take it I can, however, attach a separate external drive when it becomes necessary.

The installing of games does take some time but I had read about this before so I tend to just pop the new game in and go and do something else for an hour and I come back and it is all done. Not ideal really but something I wasn't surprised by. I'd heard that Halo could be a nightmare to install and update so just left that one on overnight.

Not done much else. Being playing Far Cry 4 mostly but looking forward to Sunset Overdrive, and then cracking on with Halo and GTA. Visually it is all very nice although perhaps not the step up that we have had from other console generations (Far Cry 4 being cross gen may have something to do with it, Sunset looked amazing during my quick play time, as did Forza Horizon). Although I say that now, no doubt if I go back to the 360 in the future I'll find all the games to be looking awfully with bad frame rates.

[Pob]

It's really good the TV tuner. Works flawlessly, nice UI and you can set the XBone to play TV by default when you switch it on, which is a nice feature if it's in the living room and you have others who might not be as shall we say technologically minded. Turn it on and there's telly there. Only downer is you can't record anything, but you can pause. And of course you've got all the catch up apps (besides ITV's bizarre omission on most platforms) to view anything you missed.

Cheers. It does seem a shame that it doesn't have PVR functionality.

I've been trying to understand the various ways that the Xbox can 'control' the living room and it seems like the only bit of Kinect I need is the IR blaster, so I might do what Jon did and get a separate one.

All I really want to do is have one remote controlling everything and be able to do it without leaving the XB1 channel. I got the XB1 media remote and it's really nice.

[Aphex Tim]

Cheers. It does seem a shame that it doesn't have PVR functionality.

I've been trying to understand the various ways that the Xbox can 'control' the living room and it seems like the only bit of Kinect I need is the IR blaster, so I might do what Jon did and get a separate one.

All I really want to do is have one remote controlling everything and be able to do it without leaving the XB1 channel. I got the XB1 media remote and it's really nice.

Granted i got my Kinect 'free' when i bought a day one console, but it is quite cool for the TV. You can just walk into the room say 'xbox on' and boom the TV's turned on, and playing TV channels. Not sure i'd necessarily buy one on its own for that privilege, but it is pretty sweet. You can also change volume and channels pretty easily from the sofa just by calling it out. Novelty still hasn't worn off for me. Although saying that the media remote is of course much more useful for actually changing channels!

[MikeBeaver]

<SNIP>......Although I say that now, no doubt if I go back to the 360 in the future I'll find all the games to be looking awfully with bad frame rates.

Played through AC: Black Flag on the One, and have now decided to have a go at AC:Rogue on the 360, it looks "quite" good, not that much difference without getting right into it, but the frame rate is pretty bad, so would imagine that the previous gen version of BF played the same, so going back, you will notice it.

Whilst my One was away getting fixed, I went back to FH2 on the 360, lasted about 20 mins before switching it off, just couldn't go back to the visuals, even though before getting the One, they were perfectly fine and it was fun to play.

[Transient Curse]

Looks like every game has to be installed into the hard drive? I mention this because after downloading 4 complete games, a demo and installing three retail games I'm down to about 20% free space. Sort of makes a mockery of MS drive to be digital when with the games sizes these days even the supplied 500GB gets filled very quickly. If they were serious about us becoming digitally minded they should have shipped with a larger drive. I take it I can, however, attach a separate external drive when it becomes necessary.

If it means anything, I think you must have installed some of largest games available, It's quite easy to have 20 or so games installed when a few of them are indie games and the other games are around 20GB, which many are.

[Halo]

I thought just over £3 a month for a reliable online service was alright - I didn't see it as 'so much for so little' at all.

I emphatically disagree. They were charging quite a lot of money for what amounted to very little in terms of infrastructure. They weren't even providing dedicated servers until this generation. What were you paying for, exactly? A glorified messaging service and a bunch of network libraries.

And it's essentially double-dipping: profiting from licensing fees for the games then charging the consumer to use the content on top.

[Boozy The Clown]

I got my money's worth.

[ZOK]

When I think of the amazing times I had playing Ghost Recon, Halo 2, Halo 3, Burnout 3, Battlefield 1943 (?) and MW2 over Live, I got more than my money's worth out of it, personally.

[El Spatula]

Live essentially didn't work for me for most of the 360s life. For reasons Microsoft where totally unable to answer until they figured out 3 years later it was something to do with my account status and I had to pretty much delete my profile and redownload it every time I wanted to use Live.

Suffice to say I don't think I got my moneys worth.

[SeanR]

If it means anything, I think you must have installed some of largest games available, It's quite easy to have 20 or so games installed when a few of them are indie games and the other games are around 20GB, which many are.

quite.

I've got 4 downloads (TF, ACU, Volgar, Worms) and 2 installs (shape up and just dance 2015), and I'm on 24% used.

[ZOK]

Live essentially didn't work for me for most of the 360s life. For reasons Microsoft where totally unable to answer until they figured out 3 years later it was something to do with my account status and I had to pretty much delete my profile and redownload it every time I wanted to use Live.

Suffice to say I don't think I got my moneys worth.

One would assume that they have refunded you then, as it was their error. They don't seem to have any issue with refunds. How much did they refund you?

[Halo]

When I think of the amazing times I had playing Ghost Recon, Halo 2, Halo 3, Burnout 3, Battlefield 1943 (?) and MW2 over Live, I got more than my money's worth out of it, personally.

Well, I'm glad, but you must see it's an excellent ruse that Microsoft got you to pay another ~£40/yr, on top of their games license fees, for 3rd party content that they had little involvement in creating. Activision, EA and Ubisoft created most of those online experiences and didn't see a penny of that Xbox Live money.

[ZOK]

You seem to have a very odd way of looking at this.

I bought Burnout 3 second hand, so whoever developed that didn't see a penny of my money. I don't care about that anymore than I care about the license fees anyone did or didn't pay. What I cared about was being abled to play games online with a great community, and £3 a month seems like a bargain for that.

[Transient Curse]

I never knew so many had so many axes to grind with Microsoft before this thread. It's a real breath of fresh air.

[Halo]

I never knew so many had so many axes to grind with Microsoft before this thread. It's a real breath of fresh air.

I have no "axe to grind" with Microsoft at all. I mean, I'm typing this on PC running Windows using a Microsoft keyboard with a Windows Phone device in my pocket! I just thought they were getting away with murder with Xbox Live, where they were charging ~£40/yr for very little on their end.

You seem to have a very odd way of looking at this.

I bought Burnout 3 second hand, so whoever developed that didn't see a penny of my money. I don't care about that anymore than I care about the license fees anyone did or didn't pay. What I cared about was being abled to play games online with a great community, and £3 a month seems like a bargain for that.

Well, I think you have a odd way of looking at it. If rllmukforum introduced a mandatory monthly fee, would you go "well, I enjoy talking online with a great community, so £3 is a bargain"?

[El Spatula]

One would assume that they have refunded you then, as it was their error. They don't seem to have any issue with refunds. How much did they refund you?

£0.00. Except for the time they decided I wanted to use an expired credit card to pay for Live after I'd cancelled my subscription. Then they paid me that back and the incurred charges. They insisted it was all on my end, despite everything else I had online working perfectly.

[SweatyTravolta]

Well, I'm glad, but you must see it's an excellent ruse that Microsoft got you to pay another ~£40/yr, on top of their games license fees, for 3rd party content that they had little involvement in creating. Activision, EA and Ubisoft created most of those online experiences and didn't see a penny of that Xbox Live money.

They managed the back end and managed it so it just bloody worked. Having tried to play numerous games online on the PS3 I can tell you that that Xbox live was worth every penny. Christ even now that Sony are charging for their service they still fuck it up.

Having a reliable, stable online infrastructure is worth every penny.

[McCoy]

If it means anything, I think you must have installed some of largest games available, It's quite easy to have 20 or so games installed when a few of them are indie games and the other games are around 20GB, which many are.

Probably. Full games are Sunset Overdrive, Battlefield, Fifa 15 and Need for Speed. Demo is Forza Horizon and retail games were GTA, Far Cry and Halo which has a 20GB patch anyway.