XBOX One: My First Impressions

Last night i found myself at the front of a very long que hoping to get walk in stock of an Xbox One, which is surprising because up until last night i was getting a PS4.
Since the PS4 has had so many issues i decided to try my luck with the Xbox One, being an Xbox fan anyway it just felt right.



After queuing up for what felt like a lifetime, i eventually got my Day One Edition Forza bundle.
My first impressions of the box were that even though it looked quite small it felt really heavy. I was going to do an unboxing video , but there are so many of them i figured i would just get right into setting up the Xbox One. Everything was very well packaged, and there was no massive manual inside like you get with the older Xbox 360.

Im not going to ramble on about whats in the box because there's that many Youtube wannabe superstars doing their " exclusive day one" BS that im sure you have already seen whats in the box, so moving swiftly on lets talk about the Xbox One, Kinect and Controller.

The controller truly is a work of art in its own rights. Its everything you ever wanted whilst holding the cumbersome Xbox 360 controller. The thumb sticks have been lowered and given a grip around the outer edge of the thumbstick and the D-Padd has also been lowered down into the body of the controller giving a much better fell of control. The bulbus battery pack has gone, and the batteries are now incorporated into the shell of the controller giving you're fingers a sense of freedom at the back of the controller. The bumper buttons are now less prominent but i think they could of been a little prouder from the controller personally, I sometimes dont know if i am spamming the bumper or not. One thing that is absolutely perfect on the controller though is the triggers.... the triggers could not be improved on any further in my book, the way the triggers thud when you pull them back and the shape of them is 100% spot on.

The Kinect doesnt freak me out when i walk in the room now by looking me up and down with its evil little eyes, instead it sites there lifeless winking at me. The new Kinect looks and feels like the older Kinect's big brother. The camera is clear and it picks you up without hesitation or jumping frantically flapping your arms. It can clearly pick different people out from a sea of faces on the couch too which is kind of creepy and fun. The voice command side of the Kinect isnt as great as they ( MS ) may have you believe , sometimes it doesn't respond at all whilst you are playing a game. I found that if the game was on loud, then the Kinect did struggle, but this wasn't unexpected.

The headset looks really cool with some nice touch buttons that you can easily use whilst still holding the controller and not loosing any gameplay time hunting around for a switch.

Remember that heavy packaging i was talking about earlier? Finally the Xbox One! The Xbox One not only looks cool ,but it runs cool as well. I have had mine on now at the time of writing this for 14 hours and its still running cool, and its so quite it doesn't seem like its even on at all.
It becomes apparent why there is no massive manual when you come to setup the Xbox One, it really is so simple. Everything is clearly labelled so you really don't need a manual.

Th initial setup takes a little while because you have to install a 500mb update first, and then go through the whole setup procedure only to find that when you go to play a game... that needs installing too., but don't worry though it's well worth the wait.

Although there are some similarities in the dashboard, like the actual layout is pretty similar, there are a lot of really cool features tucked away in the menus. I really like the " Feed" , its a social feed that shows what everyone on your friends list is and has been upto. So if any of your friends earn an achievement you will see it in your feed. If friends go on the same game as you , you will see that in your feed too. I think the social aspect of it could be improved upon, and no doubt Microsoft probably will. The snap aspect of the dash is really neat, and im enjoying using that even though multi-taksing isn't my forte its surprisingly easy with "snap". The downside ot the snap feature when using it with TV I found is that without a current Sky subscription I cant use the feature.
Another thing i really like about the Xbox One is the ability to scan game codes etc directly using QR codes, without the need manually typing them in. All in all the Dashboard feels fast and responsive and snaping between app's is extremely fast.

Overall my view of the Xbox One is a positive one, and if anyone like me is sitting on the fence and wondering if the Xbox is a glorified TV ro is a gaming machine?

It sure as hell hasn't disappointed me on the gaming front so far. The Xbox One is a Gaming Console with extras ....

I hope this has been of some help to you, and if you want to ask any questions please feel free.