**First Impressions
**
When I buy a game console, that’s just what I’m looking for–a game console. Although gaming consoles and PCs are conceptually the same thing (yes, I chucke when I hear younger gamers say a console and a computer are different things), the difference is in how they’re marketed. Since Microsoft unveiled the console back in 2013, they’ve marketed it as more than just a gaming console…more like an all round entertainment hub. However, that’s not where my main gripe lies. One of the main things that has distinguished gaming consoles from a PC, apart from the fact that it’s intended for your living room/TV, is the plug and play functionality.
One of the great things about consoles was that you could simply put in the game and play, without having to tweak settings or worry about installations or configurations. You don’t need to worry about whether your machine can run the game or not, which would be seen with PCs. Notwithstanding verification of the memory/storage requirements, the plug and play aspect has remained mostly intact. The level of abstraction allowed by consoles remained, despite the memory/space management done by the user. This generation has introduced another involved process that was previously not commonly found in consoles.
Now there is greater overhead in being able to start your game once the console is setup and connected to your monitor. The first thing is the need to connect your Microsoft account to your profile. Annoying…but not all that bad. Where it got really annoying was that I had to install a game before being able to play it. And on top of that, having to download updates.
After the initial impressions, here are the pros and cons I’ve observed:
**Pros:
****Interface
**One of the good things about the console is its interface–easy to navigate and it works well with the Kinect. It is intuitive and fluid just like the Windows 8 interface. It was easy to do the initial setup and pair the included wireless controller. The controller is comfortable to use and responsive.
**Installation
**Even though the mandatory installs are annoying for a game console, to be fair I should also mention that the install doesn’t have to be at 100% to start playing. The games I’ve installed could be played at 15% of the install complete (if not less).
Cons
**Performance
**
With the game installed on the harddrive, one would hope that the game would run well, as in not having to put up with long load times. However, the first thing I’ve noticed with several games, particularly Assassin’s Creed Unity, is that the load times are still horrendous, even after the game is running off the harddrive itself. The load times could go up to a minute. So the performance left much to be desired.
**Harddrive
**Since the XBox 360, I’ve had complaints about the hard drive…20GB was too small for the 360, and now the 500 GB drive is too small for the One. Especially considering that it is no longer just for game saves anymore or for extras like downloadable content. Now you need to have your entire game on the harddrive to be able to play it. To start, there’s only over half of that disk space that’s usable for your own installs and saves…just over 300 GB. Then the games themselves can go between 20-40 GB easily…considering that the two games included with the bundle were both downloadable, a good chunk of the space got utilized just to download and install those.
**Closing remarks
**As my closing remarks, I’ll mention that I’m overall disappointed with this generation. Though not directly a fault of the console, pretty much every game I’ve installed and played required some kind of update/patch. So I’d say that one of the current trends that I’m unhappy with, both as a gamer and a consumer, is that games are being released incomplete, only to be patched at a later time. The online connectivity and (relatively) large storage have been a double edged sword. While they had the potential to enhance the experience, they’re now being used to give leeway to the developers, allowing to release buggy products. The downloads I’ve had to do have caused my internet usage to exceed its limits, which is unacceptable for a console.
My other gripe is that despite being magnitudes more powerful than its predecessor, it doesn’t have backward compatibility. Neither with the software, nor with the hardware. So overall I’m disappointed with it compared to its predecessor, the XBox 360. Though I am looking forward to playing games from the current generation, and I bought it at a time when I was able to get a decent deal on it, with $50 off the console price and 3 free games.
I would like to see them become more strict with the QA, so that any product released on the console isn’t a buggy mess and require gigabytes of download just to make the game playable.
I would give this console a 7/10.