Adam Sessler's in-depth review of the Xbox One

Not sure if someone's posted this yet or not. Worth a watch though.

Sessler review?

Actually worth watching /10

That was actually... Reasonable. Damn.

He's making some really valid points. I gotta watch his PS4 review

Hey says kinect still sucks and you get as much out of it as you put in. Some really awesome apps, Doesn't mention games, says PS4 is a more gaming centric experience akin to last gen rather than the heavy media focus MS is putting on it, says some things such as apps need refinement.

Adam always does a good job when reviewing - and that was an overall good review.

I'm a little curious as to why he felt the need to mention the Xbox One wasn't/isn't perfect, as what new hardware is at launch?

Been hopping around to different sites and so far the majority are reviewing the Xbox One to be a better machine than the PS4.

Very good thread. Glad you posted it. Like what I hear about the X1. Its not perfect he says and I really don't expect perfection. But the potential for a real home hub is there and frankly, I gotta keep up on my Halo so.

Xbone has some nifty spytech.

Whats the point of picture in picture? Who plays a game and watches TV at the same time?

Theres a very good reason why picture in picture never took off in TVs

I thought that was a great review on the console. My only concern is his comment on the bumpers and triggers of the controller; ''uncomfortable cramps''? I personally haven't even tried out the controller and see for myself. Guess I'll find out Thursday...lol

Yeah, no surprise captain lem would love TV. Only thing Xbone does well.

He was spot on, really.

Bottomline:

XBOX ONE = Multimedia Gaming Console

PS4 = Gaming Centric Console.

The PS4 seem more appealing to me for what I want.

Well, I assumed it was because the system is based on that impact of the new sort of experience feeling like the better way of doing things. First impressions are pretty strong in that regard. They need to wow you off the bat. The hiccups could proved major is not addressed soon, if simply based on MS's approach this gen.

Agree.

Ps4 for gamers by gamers. Xbone, for tv lovers by tv lovers.

@gago-gago: yep pretty much true.

Good review, but he pretty much convinced me that the xbox one is not for me. I don't care about any of that multimedia stuff, and I never will.

I'm laughing my ass off at GameSpot's live play they're doing now - because of the voice commands not knowing exactly what it is being told to do (mainly because Danny O'Dwyer's accent) but it does help me understand where Adam is coming from.

And it is understandable that Kinect won't be perfect - mainly because it has a laundry list of phrases it will respond to and it will respond to only those phrases.

--- And GameSpot just stated "when it works it works really well"

Good review but wow, the motion still sucks???

lol'd at "If you are an avid TV watcher or want to skype with grandma on the couch, the xbox one has a lot of potential"

He really went hype on the TV features.. Really got my unexcited for the system, I don't watch TV and he was unimpressed by everything else. Even got hand cramps from the small controller and weird bumpers

Good review. Work in progress but everything oes work to varying degrees. All in all mostly positive reviews out of the seven or 8 I've read. Nothing unexpected so far and at least everyone console is actually working, lol. Im expecting both the One and PS4 to be updating like crazy the next six months patching all those holes. Good times ahead though.

I don't want to avidly watch the price is right with my grandma, so I guess the xbox one isn't for me.

Interesting watch.

Yeah I don't care for the Xbone.

Sounds like the X1 has a more ambitious plan this gen than Sony.

I guess it all depends what game shows interest you.

You can't instantly stream gameplay on Xbox One? That's a huge disappointment. That's my favorite feature on PS4.

And games seeing as how MS has an upper hand over PS4's pitiful offerings over the next year.

No twitch functionality until a later date either.

Wow. That sucks.

The PS4 does such a good job with streaming too. It's set up almost exactly like OnLive. "Live with PlayStation" is like an exact copy of "The Arena" from OnLive. And that's a good thing because the way OnLive handled live streaming was perfect. It's awesome to see it happen on a popular platform like the PS4.

I think that's exactly it. The Kotaku Review (and yeah I know, Kotaku, but it's a well written review) summed it up much the same way when bringing up some of the inconsistencies of the OS. The XB1 is supposed to become the center of your entertainment center and fundamentally change the way you react with everything connected to it. If you run into obstacles, or things don't work the way they're advertised, you'll eventually end up disconnecting everything from it and using it as a standard console... and that changes the entire value proposition.

From all I've read, it really seems to me that MS has been working under the gun for months now redesigning many features of the OS since the "180" hit. We may not know if MS can even deliver a functional convergant experience for months to come, as they get around piece by piece to fixing the things that just don't QUITE work yet.

At surfing Apps. Finish your sentences!

I don't get jealous about POS's. Currently watching GS's live stream and they're confirming it

MS has had a more ambitious plan than the other console makers for a decade before they started making consoles. For MS, it's always been about getting one of their boxes to become the center of your living room from webTV, to their (largely abandoned) HTPC support, the the XBox line. The catch is, the big device they are competing with here is the remote, and while the remote isn't always the most simple device to navigate, it works damn near 100% of the time. If MS can't deliver reliable control, people are going to end up relegating the XB1 to "mere console" status instead of connecting everything through it, and that relegates a ton of the features of the XB1 to the trashbin.

stop fanboyin' your console preference and watch it yourself. Its more comedy than anything

At least from watching GameSpot use it in their live stream - it works well when you do exactly what you have to do (and don't have an accent if using the voice commands).

Everything works and works well, you just have to do what is required of you to utilize it properly.

....or you could just use the controller for everything and treat the One like the 360.

It's gaming-centric by default by virtue of there being not much else to it...

I think that's a mostly fair statement, but lets be perfectly honest here: Voice and gesture controls seem to work well on the XB1, but no one spending considerable time with one so far has reported them to be error free. Or even close to error free. Much like the experience most of us have had with our phones, Voice recognition has come a long way, but still has frequent enough errors that you'll find yourself reissuing commands regularly. Sometimes it won't pick them up, and sometimes it won't do what you're asking. And while the Kinect camera has advanced, it's already been reported on occasion to not see people in a room, or see people not there, or mistake feet propped up for hands, or to require you to sit more towards the center to recognize you, or (in one amusing case) to see someone else walk by, and therefore sign the player out and the passer by in. And so on.

And while there isn't anything on the XB1 that you can't do without the controller, it's not been reported as a very smooth experience, and certainly not better than just doing what you've mentioned and just using the XB1 as a 360/regular old console and going back to using your entertainment center as you always have. But once you do that, you have to realize that a significant part of the cost of your fancy new console is wasted. The XB1 is purpose built to run your entertainment center. To run all video through it. To control everything. If none of that works seamlessly enough for the average gamer (or gamer's family members) to use, then it stands to reason that many will reassess whether the XB1's premium price is worth it.

A good review.

I just don't care for all this extra shit that's stuffed along with Xbone. I buy gaming consoles to game. I have Direct TV, I stream Netfilx with my PS4, and that's all I need. The Xbone's dashboard (from what it showed) looks like a cluttered, unorganized mess with tons of apps thrown everywhere, and that's pretty much what it was like with the 360 by the end.

Kinect's main feature has another problem: speech recognition tech is, and always will, remain ambiguous due to the inherent nature and structure of language. It's the reason (despite how overall decent it has become) I'll not use Apple's Siri, and it's the reason I'll never use Kinect's voice features. Voice recognition doesn't understand context, the difference between "its" and "it's", or "there", "their", "they're", and often screws up to nothing but frustration. I'm not going to sit there talking to my TV over and over until it gets it right when I can do it in two seconds with a gamepad or remote control. At least with a gamepad/controller I know I'm going to have a concrete, replicatable result 100% of the time. And also, I can't have any background music or ambient noise which further reduces functionality.

This is supposed to work in the living room bustling with activity?

Screw that.

he seemed a bit disappointed .. may be it's just me.

Even xbro like Adam not looking happy, and he probably got for free from Nelsons.

Me too, it will be interesting to see exactly how much different and improved the feature set is for both consoles in that time.

not once did he say this main feature is gaming......he himself said it is designed with media in mind.....not gaming.....sad day

I've always liked sessler only reason i watched g4, that was a good review. but he didn't seem impressed with the system. I think most of the x1 features are gimmicky, the voice recognition seems like it would piss off people.

This

I really want an xbox but I dont have a cable box, and every review and previews so far have stated that a big part of xbox one is live tv, well that function is "out the window" for me, cable tv is very expensive- $47 NZD a month and that's just basic with no recording dvr functions (dvr functions start at $88 NZD, still basic channels, no sport or movies). Plus New Zealand doesn't have voice features on launch day, we can use the American or England country settings for it (I think) but then it might not pick up on the NZ accent. Ps4 is looking to be a better option, pity I wanted to give Xbox a shot.

Sessler is the class of the gaming media. The guy is knowledgable, can have fun when the situation calls for it, and can be trusted.

There has still not been a solid review of what The One can do.

Things I want to see.

-App review

-Detailed breakdown of voice commands

-Friends system with skill matching for games

-An overview of dedicated servers on MSoft's network

-NFL linkup

These are all things that should have been reviewed when discussing the UI.