After some solid use, I'm slightly conflicted on the Xbox One. So I figure I'll give my (updated) impressions in a "pros & cons" fashion now that I've come to grips with what the system has to offer.
PROSIt's a nice looking system, especially in the Doom get-up that mine has.
There are actually quite a few games that are exclusive that are a lot of fun to play and I've always been a sucker for Halo. Dead Rising 3 is actually pretty fun, mashing stuff together into insane weapons.
Microsoft has always excelled at their controllers and the 'bone controller doesn't disappoint. It's quite fun to use and the crazy feedback rumble it gives in the triggers in Forza 6 is neat, but not really a selling point IMO.
Turn 10 continues to crank out Forza games and the spit & polish is evident in Forza 6. It's drop-dead gorgeous. I don't know how Turn 10 can pump out a new Forza entry every two years and Polyphony Digital takes 5-6 or more to put out a new Gran Turismo. It stings even more when you see GT rehashing the same mistakes over and over.
The system runs cool & quiet.
Backward compatibility! This is actually a feature I
am using which I typically & traditionally have rarely used on any console. There are several Xbox 360 games in the Halo and Gears of War series that I like to play and want to play again and being able to play every Halo game on one console is bitchin. Though sadly, the online component of Halo Reach has been neutered and removed from the game.
I really, really, really want to get an Elite controller. The ability to map the four face buttons to the paddles will have an immediate benefit for me in online shooters when I don't have to take my thumb off the right stick to hit jump, melee attack, etc. I see one of these overpriced bastards in my near future.
Online play is smooth for the most part. I know Microsoft likes to brag about their Azure servers, but the online doesn't seem to be any better or worse than PS4 online gaming.
And last but certainly not least, adding an external HDD is fantastic. I haven't done so myself, but will be soon. The ability to just add an external drive instead of swapping one out to me is the best option. To add storage to my PS4, I would have to back everything up or worse - re-download it all. With the Xbox One, just connect the drive and you can use it.
CONSWhile the system looks nice, even it's standard black incarnation, it is rather large compared to the PS4. The power brick is also cumbersome as expected. Luckily in my own area where my consoles sit, there is enough room for it to sit comfortably but I can see people having an issue with it's size.
I don't know if I'm doing something wrong, but when I eject a disc, within a second it often tries to suck the disc back in. Push the button, "ding." A second later "ding" and in the disc goes.
No idea on this one.
For all the bashing the PS4 UI gets from Xbots (pulled that out of the archives!), the Xbox One UI is a hot mess. PS4 puts my games front & center to scroll through, organized by most recently used. Go to the end and you can view them all in alphabetical order. On the 'bone, you have to scroll to the bottom of the screen, select "games & apps" then....scroll through an alphabetized list of games
lust like on the PS4 that 'bone users criticize it for! Hypocrisy at it's finest there folks.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, installs & updates are a pain in the ass. The installs take forever to begin with and
most games don't offer an option to start playing while installing like the PS4 does. Also while PS4 will tell you there is a software update, you can cancel it and play the game while the update downloads in the background. Not so with the 'bone unless you turn your internet connection to it off to "trick" it into thinking there is no update. It took nearly two full days before I could even play Halo 5. Yeah.
SUMMARYFor me, the Xbox One is a great "second system" to supplement my PlayStation gaming, more so than the Wii U which has little aside from a couple "Mario" games that I really care about. There are unfortunate "quirks" to the system software-wise that are part of the Don Mattrick legacy of evil and lead to headaches like the install issues. In hindsight, the fact that my controller wouldn't sync "out of the box" may be attributed to it not being the controller originally paired with that particular system since Bethesda customized several of them at one time. But the poor documentation didn't help in this regard. I'll be playing upcoming games like Halo Wars 2 and Gears of War 4 and I'm cautiously optimistic about Recore. If you want to use backward compatibility, you better be online with enough bandwidth & unlimited usage as each 360 game you insert starts a full-game download from Xbox Live. I can only assume that the game code is altered from it's original form on the 360 disc to make it work on the 'bone and the fact that Reach has no online features and it has been removed completely from the in-game menu lends validity to this.
