I started up a new thread to make it all clean. If you have any reviews to add to the OP post it and I'll do my best to add it to the list. I got a pretty comprehensive list to start.
Computer and Video Games
But Xbox One is a console that feels like it's missing something. Granted, we all know what that is, considering the extraordinary reversals of its more disruptive philosophies. But, as with Sony's platform, there's a clear sense that this is a platform that has laid foundations that it can build on for a whole generation.
The new Kinect is like night and day when compared to its predecessor, and the entertainment-rich interface shows flashes of amazing potential, but on day one it's just that - potential.
RollingStone
Microsoft has taken its share of criticism regarding Xbox One, including many of its policies regarding used game sales and privacy concerns. Most of those decisions have been reversed, thankfully, and what we're left with is a solid next-generation console that unifies your gaming, movie and television watching under one voice-controlled roof. Now, let's see which platform gets the best games.
IGN (Unfinished)
NBC
How does it all add up? Like the legions of gamers that flocked to pick up the PlayStation 4 last week, I admired Sony's new console because of its incredible promise. Microsoft, on the other hand, has already begun to deliver on the promises it made with the Xbox One.
TechCrunch
Would I recommend buying the Xbox One? If you already have a 360 and aren’t absolutely dying for any of the launch titles, I would say hold off for now. Give developers a bit of time to figure out the console’s inner workings. Let the must-have titles get made. If your 360 is on its last leg or you skipped the last generation, however, it’s a solid buy as is.
Kotaku
The Xbox One is trying some very cool new things, and it's launching alongside some very fun games. But there are so many rough edges, and the software feels incomplete. Do you need to have an Xbox One?
Engadget
The Xbox One may not be exactly what Microsoft thinks it is, but it's still a strong start for a powerful game console. Its sheer speed, versatility, horsepower and its ability to turn on and off with words make it a relatively seamless entry into our already crowded media center. What determines whether it stays there is the next 12 months: Exclusives like Titanfall and Quantum Break will help, as will gaining feature parity with the competition (we're looking at you, game broadcasting!). For broader success beyond just the early adopter's living room, the NFL crowd must buy in to Microsoft's $500 box. But will they? That remains to be seen. What's there so far is a very competent game box with an expensive camera and only a few exclusive games differentiating it from the competition.
Gizmodo
But—and this is admittedly a sizable but—if the Xbox One can straighten the few little quirks it has with some software tweaks, this thing is going to be unstoppable in a way the PS4 could never touch. It's too versatile, too feature-ridden, too future. So wait, yes. But while you do, go ahead and start clearing out plenty of space underneath your television.
arsTechnica
As a video game console, the Xbox One offers about what you'd expect from a new Microsoft console: a big, heavy box (though quieter than you might expect), more impressive specs (though less than what you might expect after eight years), an improved controller (though still with a few odd oversights), and some good exclusive games (more reviews are coming but look into Dead Rising 3, Forza 5, Powerstar Golf, and Zoo Tycoon). As the central hub of a living room entertainment complex, though, Microsoft has a much harder sell. The company needs to prove the Xbox really adds enough value to be worthwhile and to justify the extra cost of the included Kinect over its similar competition.
Telegraph (UK)
So should you buy one? It’s a tricky question to answer. Reviewing a video games console at launch is about judging potential and ease of use. Similarly, buying one is buying into that potential. The last generation brought a sea change in that video games console now evolve and improve over their lifetime. The Xbox One seems set up to do just that. And as a starting point, it’s a very good one. The dashboard is dynamic, easy to use and malleable enough that when more content becomes available, you can curate it how you wish. That initial wave of content, while certainly capable enough, doesn’t yet have the power to make the console a must-have, especially considering the chunky price tag. Currently an unessential luxury, then, but one with a bright future.
Huffington Post
Although the One has its flaws, it's important to remember where the Xbox 360 was when it started, and how far it's come. Microsoft will surely get feedback from owners and mold the One into a more perfect version of an all-in-one entertainment system. What they've got now is a nice foundation.
Time
But this is 2013, and $500 happens to be the cost of an entry-level iPad, a tablet Apple’s sold 170 million of in less than three years time. That, and $500 buys you more than a souped-up gaming portal: the Xbox One is a content assimilation engine, a vanguard move into a market the competition’s still toying around in by comparison. It’s an immature, somewhat glitchy content assimilation engine at this stage, sure, and it shares the PS4′s launch game weaknesses if you’re coming at it from the gaming side, but if you’re an early adopter or you’re already invested in Xbox Live’s social ecosystem, think of it as the jumping off point for a fascinating experiment. If it’s successful — and I’m not saying it will be; ask me again in four or five years — it has the potential to change everything about TV and streaming media and the living room as we’ve known it for decades.
ABC News
However you decide to control it, though, the Xbox One is a versatile, powerful machine that should be able to deliver inventive high-definition games for a long time. Between it and the PlayStation 4, the new generation of gaming is off to a roaring start.
Joystick
The success of the Xbox One is largely dependent on what you need for the living room, and whether you intend to use the system for multiple forms of media, with multiple people in mind. The user interface feels cluttered at times, and it has a definite learning curve, but it's also easy to carve out a quick and comfortable groove for yourself as you jump between a game and a few different applications. The Xbox One's app-driven interface is full of possibilities, living alongside quirks to be learned or updated in future.
Toms Guide
The Xbox One seeks to be many things to many people, and it succeeds on most fronts. A more powerful CPU and GPU ensures next-gen graphics, even though it will be some time before developers tap this console’s full potential. However, if the One’s launch titles are any indication, the console’s off to a solid start.
CNET
The Xbox One goes beyond gaming with its ambitious live TV integration, but at launch it can't deliver a knockout blow to the PS4 due to a higher price and uneven voice control. We suggest you wait for improvements, but for now, the Xbox One is better suited to forgiving early adopters.
The Next Web
I had high expectations for the Xbox One, and it largely lived up to them. The main disappointment was that it doesn’t work as an all-in-one system for me because of my coaxial TV setup, but the feature should work great for most up-to-date cable and satellite customers. While the console had some of the minor issues that I’d expect to see in the early days of a version 1.0 launch, I didn’t run into any major causes for concern.
Eurogamer/Digital Foundry
There are some great ideas here, then, but we've had just a small glimpse of what the machine is capable of. Cool functions like resuming gameplay from standby are flaky, while the centrepiece of the media experience - full integration with live TV - just isn't there yet outside of Microsoft's home market. It's coming, but we have no idea when. The core of what's left, beyond some neat features, is very much a games machine: one whose capabilities are proven, but which remains considerably more expensive than PlayStation 4.
Wired
And that pretty much encapsulated my experience with Xbox One: It does a lot of things, and in a way that you may find extremely helpful, but you’ll need to take the time to learn how to do them — and learn by trial and error when it’s best to just stop trying.
Fortune
A new console may live or die based on its initial games, and here is where the Xbox One trumps the PlayStation 4. Both Ryse and Forza Motorsportare the kind of graphical showcases that should move consoles throughout the holiday season.
Microsoft and Sony are positioning their consoles as multi-purpose entertainment hubs for the living room, and some consumers may make their decision simply based on price. (After all, the PlayStation 4 is $100 less.) But if Microsoft can iron out some performance quirks around voice recognition and Snap, the decision won't be too hard: it's far easier to glimpse the future potential in the Xbox One, starting with 10 seconds of time and the simple two-word voice command: "Xbox on."
Polygon
The Xbox One is an impressive marriage of software and hardware that raises the bar in terms of what we expect from a living-room machine. Looking forward more than it looks back, the Xbox One feels like it's from the future.
TechRadar
Penny Arcade
The Xbox One is a confusing mess of hardware and UI that sings once you learn the voice commands
Computer and Video Games
But Xbox One is a console that feels like it's missing something. Granted, we all know what that is, considering the extraordinary reversals of its more disruptive philosophies. But, as with Sony's platform, there's a clear sense that this is a platform that has laid foundations that it can build on for a whole generation.
The new Kinect is like night and day when compared to its predecessor, and the entertainment-rich interface shows flashes of amazing potential, but on day one it's just that - potential.
RollingStone
Microsoft has taken its share of criticism regarding Xbox One, including many of its policies regarding used game sales and privacy concerns. Most of those decisions have been reversed, thankfully, and what we're left with is a solid next-generation console that unifies your gaming, movie and television watching under one voice-controlled roof. Now, let's see which platform gets the best games.
IGN (Unfinished)
NBC
How does it all add up? Like the legions of gamers that flocked to pick up the PlayStation 4 last week, I admired Sony's new console because of its incredible promise. Microsoft, on the other hand, has already begun to deliver on the promises it made with the Xbox One.
TechCrunch
Would I recommend buying the Xbox One? If you already have a 360 and aren’t absolutely dying for any of the launch titles, I would say hold off for now. Give developers a bit of time to figure out the console’s inner workings. Let the must-have titles get made. If your 360 is on its last leg or you skipped the last generation, however, it’s a solid buy as is.
Kotaku
The Xbox One is trying some very cool new things, and it's launching alongside some very fun games. But there are so many rough edges, and the software feels incomplete. Do you need to have an Xbox One?
Engadget
The Xbox One may not be exactly what Microsoft thinks it is, but it's still a strong start for a powerful game console. Its sheer speed, versatility, horsepower and its ability to turn on and off with words make it a relatively seamless entry into our already crowded media center. What determines whether it stays there is the next 12 months: Exclusives like Titanfall and Quantum Break will help, as will gaining feature parity with the competition (we're looking at you, game broadcasting!). For broader success beyond just the early adopter's living room, the NFL crowd must buy in to Microsoft's $500 box. But will they? That remains to be seen. What's there so far is a very competent game box with an expensive camera and only a few exclusive games differentiating it from the competition.
Gizmodo
But—and this is admittedly a sizable but—if the Xbox One can straighten the few little quirks it has with some software tweaks, this thing is going to be unstoppable in a way the PS4 could never touch. It's too versatile, too feature-ridden, too future. So wait, yes. But while you do, go ahead and start clearing out plenty of space underneath your television.
arsTechnica
As a video game console, the Xbox One offers about what you'd expect from a new Microsoft console: a big, heavy box (though quieter than you might expect), more impressive specs (though less than what you might expect after eight years), an improved controller (though still with a few odd oversights), and some good exclusive games (more reviews are coming but look into Dead Rising 3, Forza 5, Powerstar Golf, and Zoo Tycoon). As the central hub of a living room entertainment complex, though, Microsoft has a much harder sell. The company needs to prove the Xbox really adds enough value to be worthwhile and to justify the extra cost of the included Kinect over its similar competition.
Telegraph (UK)
So should you buy one? It’s a tricky question to answer. Reviewing a video games console at launch is about judging potential and ease of use. Similarly, buying one is buying into that potential. The last generation brought a sea change in that video games console now evolve and improve over their lifetime. The Xbox One seems set up to do just that. And as a starting point, it’s a very good one. The dashboard is dynamic, easy to use and malleable enough that when more content becomes available, you can curate it how you wish. That initial wave of content, while certainly capable enough, doesn’t yet have the power to make the console a must-have, especially considering the chunky price tag. Currently an unessential luxury, then, but one with a bright future.
Huffington Post
Although the One has its flaws, it's important to remember where the Xbox 360 was when it started, and how far it's come. Microsoft will surely get feedback from owners and mold the One into a more perfect version of an all-in-one entertainment system. What they've got now is a nice foundation.
Time
But this is 2013, and $500 happens to be the cost of an entry-level iPad, a tablet Apple’s sold 170 million of in less than three years time. That, and $500 buys you more than a souped-up gaming portal: the Xbox One is a content assimilation engine, a vanguard move into a market the competition’s still toying around in by comparison. It’s an immature, somewhat glitchy content assimilation engine at this stage, sure, and it shares the PS4′s launch game weaknesses if you’re coming at it from the gaming side, but if you’re an early adopter or you’re already invested in Xbox Live’s social ecosystem, think of it as the jumping off point for a fascinating experiment. If it’s successful — and I’m not saying it will be; ask me again in four or five years — it has the potential to change everything about TV and streaming media and the living room as we’ve known it for decades.
ABC News
However you decide to control it, though, the Xbox One is a versatile, powerful machine that should be able to deliver inventive high-definition games for a long time. Between it and the PlayStation 4, the new generation of gaming is off to a roaring start.
Joystick
The success of the Xbox One is largely dependent on what you need for the living room, and whether you intend to use the system for multiple forms of media, with multiple people in mind. The user interface feels cluttered at times, and it has a definite learning curve, but it's also easy to carve out a quick and comfortable groove for yourself as you jump between a game and a few different applications. The Xbox One's app-driven interface is full of possibilities, living alongside quirks to be learned or updated in future.
Toms Guide
The Xbox One seeks to be many things to many people, and it succeeds on most fronts. A more powerful CPU and GPU ensures next-gen graphics, even though it will be some time before developers tap this console’s full potential. However, if the One’s launch titles are any indication, the console’s off to a solid start.
CNET
The Xbox One goes beyond gaming with its ambitious live TV integration, but at launch it can't deliver a knockout blow to the PS4 due to a higher price and uneven voice control. We suggest you wait for improvements, but for now, the Xbox One is better suited to forgiving early adopters.
The Next Web
I had high expectations for the Xbox One, and it largely lived up to them. The main disappointment was that it doesn’t work as an all-in-one system for me because of my coaxial TV setup, but the feature should work great for most up-to-date cable and satellite customers. While the console had some of the minor issues that I’d expect to see in the early days of a version 1.0 launch, I didn’t run into any major causes for concern.
Eurogamer/Digital Foundry
There are some great ideas here, then, but we've had just a small glimpse of what the machine is capable of. Cool functions like resuming gameplay from standby are flaky, while the centrepiece of the media experience - full integration with live TV - just isn't there yet outside of Microsoft's home market. It's coming, but we have no idea when. The core of what's left, beyond some neat features, is very much a games machine: one whose capabilities are proven, but which remains considerably more expensive than PlayStation 4.
Wired
And that pretty much encapsulated my experience with Xbox One: It does a lot of things, and in a way that you may find extremely helpful, but you’ll need to take the time to learn how to do them — and learn by trial and error when it’s best to just stop trying.
Fortune
A new console may live or die based on its initial games, and here is where the Xbox One trumps the PlayStation 4. Both Ryse and Forza Motorsportare the kind of graphical showcases that should move consoles throughout the holiday season.
Microsoft and Sony are positioning their consoles as multi-purpose entertainment hubs for the living room, and some consumers may make their decision simply based on price. (After all, the PlayStation 4 is $100 less.) But if Microsoft can iron out some performance quirks around voice recognition and Snap, the decision won't be too hard: it's far easier to glimpse the future potential in the Xbox One, starting with 10 seconds of time and the simple two-word voice command: "Xbox on."
Polygon
The Xbox One is an impressive marriage of software and hardware that raises the bar in terms of what we expect from a living-room machine. Looking forward more than it looks back, the Xbox One feels like it's from the future.
TechRadar
Penny Arcade
The Xbox One is a confusing mess of hardware and UI that sings once you learn the voice commands
Last edited:
