Xbox One, Geared towards the Hardcore or the Living Room??

            

            On May 21, Microsoft announced the Xbox One; this is their next-gen outing of the Xbox 360 gaming console. This is the first time in the video game industry that a console generation lasted for more than five years. In this case it was been eight years since the last Xbox was released. During that time many advances in technological innovation forced the console evolve in order to compete http://goo.gl/bUPNP. Smartphones and tablets forced them to bring apps and services to the console, i.e. Netflix and Hulu. Social media, i.e. Facebook and Twitter, exploded during that time and became a huge part of how gamers interacted with one another. Along with streaming sites gamers were now able to immerse themselves fully into gaming.

           

              One of the biggest challenges that the Xbox team has faced was a way to draw the growing number of casual gamers to their console. Nintendo’s Wii had a solid hold on this market for years after its initial release. Microsoft and its main rival Sony, with their Playstation 3, had to scramble to meet the demand. Its solutions were the Playstation Eye and Xbox Kinect. To this day the growing market is the casual gamer aka women, parents, and grandparents. This is the market that has to be gained in order for any system to win the battle moving forward.

            At the Microsoft event I feel that Xbox has positioned itself as an entertainment console.During the course of their presentation they showcased different ways that they envision the Xbox One being used as an interactive media controller http://goo.gl/Ih9EF, enabling the device to be switched on and off by simply using the phrases “Xbox On” or “Xbox Off” and actually recognizing your voice and being able to log in to your unique homepage on the system. The stand out feature that I think is the catalyst to put more Xbox’s in people homes is the introduction of using the console as a conduit to control the programming on your television and altering the console-tv paradigm. Being able to control programming and manipulate what’s on the screen with the power of your voice and hands respectively, really help integrate the Kinect in to ecosystem of useful accessories of the Xbox to further control the visuals on the screen.The addition of Skype, which Microsoft acquired late last year, has also been heavily integrated in to the system as well putting social media as a priority going forward. All this sounds well and great for the new consumers not really into gaming, but what about the hardcore gaming fan base that has supported the console from the beginning.

  

               

               Earlier in the year Sony released information on their Playstation 4 console. Comparing the specs side-by-side you can see that the Xbox One has similar hardware only with minor differences http://goo.gl/dUuMo. The position Sony is taking is that their console is geared towards the hardcore gamers, a position backed by the lack of actual games being shown at the Xbox conference, where there was a plentiful amount at Sony’s conference. This was taken into account by the Microsoft Execs stating “ This event was to reveal and show off our vision for this console generation moving forward”. In three weeks the annual E3 press event where the biggest names in gaming show off their newest and latest games they’ve been working on. I feel there is were Xbox will show its tremendous game line up and declare that they have not forgot about the gamers that have got them to where they are today.