In Case You Missed It, The Xbox One Has Been Announced

Now that you are all excited let me point out the piss in your Cheerios there. After watching the whole reveal it looks like there is a lot more focus on making the Xbox One a home entertainment system instead of a gaming console. Most of what was shown off revolved around interacting with your TV and very little with actual gaming. This was quite surprising to me really, but that's the way the cookie crumbles I guess.

For the actually gaming news surrounding it let me start with the hardware specs.

  • Optical Drive — Blu-Ray/DVD
  • RAM — 8GB GDDR3
  • CPU — 8 Core Microsoft custom
  • Storage — 500GB
  • USB — USB 3.0
  • Networking — Ethernet, Wi-Fi Direct
  • Bluetooth — Bluetooth 2.1 (EDR)
  • A/V — HDMI In/Outputs with 1080p and 4K support
  • Controller — Kinect 2, Voice, and Upgraded Controller

So there you go in a nutshell. It is also worth noting that not listed, but mentioned is the compatibility to use Smart Glass and other mobile devices to connect to the system as a form of control, much like the Vita and PS Mobile to the PS4.

A few other details that we were able to take away in terms of the gaming capabilities are:

  • There are plans to have 15 exclusive launch titles.
  • 8 of those to be "new" IPs.
  • No backwards capability
  • No need for being always online
  • Gamerscore will carry over
  • There will be a fee to play an installed game on another Xbox One

While there was very little footage, pretty much none, about the above listed new IPs or exclusives it is nice to hear that there are quite a few planned. If we are not going to be able to play all of our older titles on the new console we will totally need something to hook us in. I just hope they mean truly new IPs and not "re-imagining" of IPs. We will certainly find out here in the next few weeks unless the plan is to make the Xbox One truly just a home entertainment solution and not a gaming machine.

Here is a link to the full event and further details since I know you are going to want more. Are you excited for the Xbox One or do you think it is still lackluster from what has been shown thus far?