Xbox One Console Reviews
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Insomniac Games, beloved for its Ratchet & Clank and Resistance games, hit a career low with Fuse, the 2013 cooperative shooter formerly known as Overstrike. It was a game that debuted with a positive reception, unveiled with a stylish, cheeky trailer at E3 2012. A year later, when Insomniac and publisher Electronic Arts re-introduced the game as Fuse, it was more serious, more grounded, but drained of the personality that attracted many potential players.
Reaction to Insomniac's new direction was generally negative. Fuse was a commercial and critical letdown. It is, according to Metacritic, Insomniac's lowest rated game.
Insomniac developers and executives look back on Fuse as a learning experience, an important step in the veteran studio recognizing what it does best.
"Fuse was a tough experience," said Ted Price, president and CEO of Insomniac Games. "It really was."
"Fuse helped crystallize who we are as a company," Price said. "It helped me realize that basically what it is that we all love to create. We've taken a lot of different paths as a company, whether it's Resistance or Fuse or some other games that didn't even see the light of day, and always have come back to games that are in the ilk of Sunset Overdrive. It's the colorful, vibrant games with an edge. Games that allow us to express ourselves in a way that's sometimes unusual."
The reception to Fuse, was a validation of sorts to Insomniac. The company is best at making a certain type of game, staffers say, the type of colorful, playful experience that's loaded with unusual, sometimes silly weapons.
"I think Fuse taught us to trust our instincts, and that was our first new IP outside of the Sony cocoon," said brand development director Ryan Schneider. "And in order for Sunset Overdrive to live on its own the way that it is, you have to have the guts to put out something that stands completely in the face of what is currently happening. So, I think Fuse was critical for our growth."
"It validated our own self-confidence a little bit," said lead gameplay programmer Doug Sheahan. "In this weird way, being knocked down a bit, validated what we as a company do well. We feel like we did a lot of good things on Fuse and it wasn't as well received as we would've hoped, clearly. But we think some good things came out of it, but there were some changes that, looking back, we should've stuck to our guns."
That's what the Burbank, Calif.-based developer promises it's doing with Sunset Overdrive. And, the studio said, publisher Microsoft is allowing them to do just that: make the game they should, without compromise, fulfilling the promise made at last year's E3 with Sunset Overdrive's colorful, manic debut trailer.
"We know what the reaction from Overstrike [changing] to Fuse was," said producer Bryan Intihar. "We understand. The common thing was, when the Sunset Overdrive E3 trailer came out, everyone was saying, 'Oh, is this going to be another Fuse in a year?' We knew that.
"We showed you what we showed a year ago and we're improving on that."
With Sunset Overdrive, Insomniac is doubling down on what it believes the company is best at creating: fun, irreverent, colorful games that ooze personality.
"We learned a lot on Fuse, no question about it," Price said.
"There are some ideas that energize people here at Insomniac from the very beginning, and I think Sunset Overdrive was one of those ideas," he said. "There's some other ideas that you struggle to crystalize. You struggle to make them work, and you try to fit them into your perception of what a game should be. And those are the ones that tend to die before they ever make it to production, but Sunset from the very beginning had a tone and a concept for gameplay, and a story that captivated the team here at Insomniac.
"When I think about why people come to Insomniac, they come because we've been making stylized games for a long time. And even though Resistance and Fuse were much darker games, in general, fans know us for the bright colorful, in many cases irreverent, franchises that we've built. And I think part of the lure of being in a company, or part of a company that builds those kinds of games, is that you're less constrained, in terms of what it is you can create. Therefore, you can be more creative, which is why a lot of us get into the games business in the first place."
Should you be excited for Sunset Overdrive? - Polygon Friends List 5/8/14
While the next Halo game still doesn’t have an official title today Microsoft posted a new video featuring the Xbox One’s design on both hardware and software fronts, and eagle-eyed Reddit user Fozzin spotted something definitely interesting, as showcased in the picture below.
As you can see the picture (captured at the 50 seconds mark in the video) features player “Pit Bear” playing Infinity Slayer Mode on the Haven map in Halo 5.
Of course this could be a placeholder or an oversight. Haven is a map in Halo 4, and the Infinity Slayer mode comes from the same game, but this is the very first time the game is called “Halo 5” in official material from Microsoft.
Whether this is a glimpse on the future and a hint to the fact that the next Halo game will be really called Halo 5 or not, we cannot know, but it’s definitely intriguing.
Below you can see the full video.
For everyone who felt the Xbox One is too expensive, Microsoft has apparently heard your complaints.
Microsoft announced that a new $399 Xbox One (£350 in UK) is coming June 9 that does not include the Kinect peripheral. Additionally, the Xbox One and Xbox 360 will no longer require a Live Gold subscription to access streaming apps like Netflix, Hulu Plus, YouTube, and HBO Go. A Live Gold subscription will also not be needed for some premium services on the Xbox One, such as OneGuide, Internet Explorer, and Skype.
There will still be some services that are exclusive to Live Gold subscribers, including the "Games with Gold" program, cloud game saves, and Game DVR. To celebrate the one-year anniversary of Games with Gold, Live Gold subscribers will receive an additional free Xbox 360 game in June. Additionally, Microsoft announced that both "Games with Gold" and "Deals with Gold" will come to the Xbox One in June.
The cheaper Xbox One model will allow Microsoft to match the $399 PS4 on price, along with removing the nearly required $60 yearly fee that raised the Xbox One's total cost of ownership. The subscription fee was an anomaly among living room devices, with other devices, such as the Google Chromecast, Roku boxes, and, most importantly, the PS4, having no comparable charges to access streaming services.
http://www.cnet.com/news/new-399-xbox-one-without-kinect/
Microsoft announced that a new $399 Xbox One (£350 in UK) is coming June 9 that does not include the Kinect peripheral. Additionally, the Xbox One and Xbox 360 will no longer require a Live Gold subscription to access streaming apps like Netflix, Hulu Plus, YouTube, and HBO Go. A Live Gold subscription will also not be needed for some premium services on the Xbox One, such as OneGuide, Internet Explorer, and Skype.
There will still be some services that are exclusive to Live Gold subscribers, including the "Games with Gold" program, cloud game saves, and Game DVR. To celebrate the one-year anniversary of Games with Gold, Live Gold subscribers will receive an additional free Xbox 360 game in June. Additionally, Microsoft announced that both "Games with Gold" and "Deals with Gold" will come to the Xbox One in June.
The cheaper Xbox One model will allow Microsoft to match the $399 PS4 on price, along with removing the nearly required $60 yearly fee that raised the Xbox One's total cost of ownership. The subscription fee was an anomaly among living room devices, with other devices, such as the Google Chromecast, Roku boxes, and, most importantly, the PS4, having no comparable charges to access streaming services.
http://www.cnet.com/news/new-399-xbox-one-without-kinect/
theyll be flying off the shelves now..
watch Sony come back with a drop of their own
watch Sony come back with a drop of their own
They should have dropped to $399 WITH the Kinect...
Not requiring Gold for shit you've already paid for is long overdue...
Games With Gold on Xbox One..
Add a way to remove the HDD, Make the Dash customizable, and bring back DLNA and we're in business..
Not requiring Gold for shit you've already paid for is long overdue...
Games With Gold on Xbox One..
Add a way to remove the HDD, Make the Dash customizable, and bring back DLNA and we're in business..
And I see Xbox One rips are being released to the scene... Don't tell me a XB1 hack is coming... 
So all that talk about the Kinect and developing games was bullshit.
I bought both systems last time.
I bought a Xbox 360 after the disc read error of the ps2 and ps3 retarded launch price but after 7 xbox 360s due to the ring of death and honestly no games that really appeal to me as far as exclusives I can't see myself buying a Xbox. Plus now Xbox is launching a Xbox Live similar to PS Plus? Wonder what they will do next because when you are behind you will make moves as we saw with PS3 getting the crap kicked out of them by the Xbox 360. Now it's PS4 winning right now.
Let's see what happens with sales.
I bought both systems last time.
I bought a Xbox 360 after the disc read error of the ps2 and ps3 retarded launch price but after 7 xbox 360s due to the ring of death and honestly no games that really appeal to me as far as exclusives I can't see myself buying a Xbox. Plus now Xbox is launching a Xbox Live similar to PS Plus? Wonder what they will do next because when you are behind you will make moves as we saw with PS3 getting the crap kicked out of them by the Xbox 360. Now it's PS4 winning right now.
Let's see what happens with sales.
They've both bitten off each other as far as the online services go... Xbox Live still shits on PSN tho...
no doubt. Sony only advantage is the games you get "free" through PS plus. I had to buy another Playstation because that 40 gb wasn't cutting it so I bought a 300 GB and loaded it up with games. Especially during the flash week sales.
Yea they had to adapt it. Going the rental route will allow them to get newer games. Because there is no way in hell they could have given out Bioshock Infinite and Devil May Cry for free forever to anyone with Gold. E3 is gonna be interesting.
Sent From My Galaxy S5
Sent From My Galaxy S5
The Xbox One might eventually allow system-level voice commands through headsets and even offer more horsepower to game developers, both as a result of Microsoft's big decision to start selling their new console, optionally, without the Kinect sensor.
Neither of those next-level changes is happening just yet, though both appear to at least be on the minds of the top Xbox team as far as I could tell after talking today with Microsoft's new(ish) Xbox chief and long-time Xbox games studios boss Phil Spencer.
We were discussing Microsoft's move to start selling an Xbox One without Kinect next month, which lead to questions from me about things like Kinect-less voice commands and a reallocation of processing power from Kinect to other parts of the console.
"We know that voice is important to a lot of people and I'd like to unlock that for as many people as we can," Spencer said, as we explored the idea of talking to the console without a Kinect.
Currently, Xbox One users can use voice commands, sensed by the Kinect, to navigate system menus, pause streaming video and such. They can't use voice commands through with an Xbox One headset.
Sensing a user's voice with Kinect's audio and visual sensors is optimal, Spencer said, but it sounds like it won't be the only way the Xbox One will be able to listen to its users.
"I don't know if most people know this, but Kinect and the actual NUI part of it—or what we call the part that finds the skeleton—is actually an important part of the voice recognition, because we actually find where the mouth is in the room and we localize the array to that which helps a lot with our hit rate success with our voice commands.
"Obviously, without Kinect involved, the scenario you bring up is something we've thought a lot about with headsets... people own phones today with a microphone .. there are other things we could do. It's part of our discussions about how to use the investment we've made in voice to make sure it's available to as many people as possible."
Though it sounds like Microsoft would eventually offer headset voice control, Spencer said the company wasn't prepared to do that right now.
Microsoft isn't ditching Kinect. It will still be sold. Games can and will still use it. Spencer even says that he believes that "the best Xbox One is Xbox One with Kinect plugged in." But the console not automatically having a Kinect means it doesn't need a Kinect, which means that people making games for it shouldn't have to assume there will be a Kinect, which brings us to this idea: The removal of the Kinect as an automatic part of every Xbox One set-up could also lead to a reallocation of the console's processing power.
Parts of a console's muscle are always spent on system-level processes like, say, achievement-tracking or party chat. Some amount of Xbox One power has also been reserved for Kinect. Spencer acknowledged that game developers would like some of that power and that a Kinect-less Xbox One might have it to spare.
"I know that developers want to get every bit of functionality out of the box that they can," Spencer said. "In conversations I'm having with our partners, that's something that's come up. We need to land the right plan there so that we've ticked off all the boxes to make sure we understand all of the long-term ramifications, but you bring up an idea and a workstream that we're focused on that makes a ton of sense. It's just about when we're ready to make those kinds of calls."
Both the headset-for-voice-commands and the more-horsepower-for-games ideas may only be in the planning or exploratory stages at Microsoft, the Kinect-less Xbox One is a real thing. Well, it'll be real on June 9 when Microsoft starts selling the console without Kinect and the now-matched same price as the PlayStation 4, $399.
As far as Spencer is concerned, this is a case of Microsoft listening to consumers, checking off boxes, and giving people choices.
"There were some things we were hearing about our platform and, frankly, things they wished our platform did or policies that we would bring in. We're working through a list. Now the [next] thing on that list is 'have a great E3,' and I know that sounds kind of trite, but it's such a focus for us right now.
"You have discussion about, 'Do you wait for the E3 stage or not?,'" he said, referring to the Kinect-free option and today's other news about tweaks to Xbox Live Gold. "I wanted to have the policies in place and the product available as soon as possible and I wanted to leave as much time as possible in our 90 minutes on stage at E3 to just hit the games line-up. Because I think fundamentally that's what people do with our platform and I want to have as much time as we could."
E3 is just a month away. We'll have plenty more coverage about Microsoft and its competition then as they all continue to try to one-up each other for our gaming benefit.
I just watched some videos on IGN about the changes coming to Xbox One. Glad they droping the Kinect & doing away with needing gold to use apps. Bringing Game With Gold to Xbox One was a great addition. It's a even console race now. MS has to bring it at E# to bring people back to their band wagon.
While I agree, there are some people who refuse to get it because of the Kinect for various reasons.
Sent From My Galaxy S5
To me the kinect makes the xbox one the shit, I guess you have a point the tin foil hat wearers are afraid of the watchful kinect eye..
Wasn't a fan of the first one but the 2.0 turned me around with the voice commands and auto sign ins. Wish people actually tried it before hating it but Oh well. Sony should be worried now. Even with the bad rep and higher price, they sold a lot of systems. A very close fight in the states. A strong E3 and a big push in the UK will be good for them.
Sent From My Galaxy S5
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