[mentos]

I really think Xbox could win the battle for the living room.

I'm more excited for it as a media center than as a game console. The fact that they let you pass through your cable box to an HDMI-IN shows me that they have been paying attention. I believe this was something that the Logitech Revue pioneered but unfortunately didn't take off due to being too slow a unit. I've been waiting to see who might support this and so far it only looks like Microsoft has. You may not appreciate it, but being able to flip between games/sites/cable instantly goes a long way in making your living room experience seamless, and I really think that will be the difference in this short term (while people still own cable boxes) if Sony/Apple/Google don't follow suit.

[ekianjo]

As a game console, though, it's not progressing well against the PS4 so far. Worldwide there's about 50% more PS4 than XboxOne out there (6M vs 4M) and Sony has the gamer image advantage that Microsoft's Xbox can never hope to replace (at least not at this point). The Playstation brand is very strong, and the main reason why the Xbox360 was very much on par with the PS3 in the last generation was because of Sony being very late on the market, with a much higher price. It helped Microsoft get a healthy start but eventually Sony caught up. This generation shows that when consoles are about the same price and released at the same time, Sony would take the headstart. It will not win the living room battle.

[parasubvert]

They really could. They seem to have gone to market quicker than they were ready for this though, hopping the first mover advantage would allow people to see the potential. It's definitely there, with the snap feature for example to multitask apps (like watching a TV show with Skype on the side, sharing living rooms), the voice commands and gestures, etc.

I wish they supported more cable provider guides through their Live TV, but I guess it's early.

Apple bought the company that made the technology behind the Kinect, so I presume they believe Microsoft has the right idea.

[mitchty]

I thought Apple bought the v1 kinect company and the xbone's kinect is all ms internal?

That said the new kinect voice is SOOOOO close to being good, the stupid thing fails more often than siri though so I tend to forget to use it ever except the first day I got my xbox.

I still hate that I need to pay for gold just to watch netflix (this is the reason I have my Apple TV tbh, I maybe use gold over the winter but other than that I got better things to do).

The multitasking is quite brilliant though, it transitions between games so flawlessly its almost uncanny to me.

[parasubvert]

Yeah, MS bought a couple of other companies after Kinect v1 which allowed them to do more with the Xbone.

The big downside for Xbox is as you say, the $59 Xbox Live Gold subscription. This rake is not likely something the new competing experiences like Amazon FireTV or AppleTV 4th gen will have, so they'll have to a have a LOT of perks to justify it. So far OneGuide, Skype and free Fitness demos seem a bit light (with Skype being the best justification of the lot).

[turnip1979]

I've had almost every system of the previous generations. I'm not planning on getting either the PS4 or the Xbone as long as they require the silly subscription for key content (e.g. if you want Titanfall [a multiplayer only game], you need to pay, Netflix??!!). I play casually so it really annoys me.

Given that I own over 30 games for the XBox 360, it is kind of interesting that M$FT is letting go of my business. Surely, I'm not the only one who got 1-2 XBox Live subscriptions in the past, used it for 3-4 gaming sessions and swore never to do that again. Oh well ... now that I have minescraft for the 360, I don't really need anything else ever again :-p

[parasubvert]

My wife pays for the XBL subscription, so I picked up Titanfall for us, which is quite fun. Perhaps not $69 one time + $59/year of fun. But we are okay with it for now as we get to use the same account on the older 360s as well. Still use AppleTV for most media consumption, but that could change over time.

One plus was that an Xbox only requires one regular $59 XBL subscription now, then any account get the benefits, they got rid of the the $99 family pack.

[gr2020]

Indeed. I think the one flaw in their system, at the moment, is the xbox needs to be on all the time if your cable box is connected to it; if it's powered off, there is no HDMI pass-through.

[Gracana]

Oh, hmm. Does anyone know how much power it uses when idling?

[Jackim]

Here's an article about the PS4 and XB1's power consumption. Looks like the XB1 draws 18W on connected standby.

http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/173127-ps4-xbox-one-power-...

[mentos]

well, that leaves something on the table for Apple/Google