Your new running shoes have WiFi, but there are still -- still! -- no flying cars. We've got mini-supercomputers in our pockets, but where's the kitchen machine that materializes beef bourguignon? It's not quite the future we predicted, at least as far as Back to the Future 2 and The Jetsons informed us, but it's the future we've got. Something as basic as, say, turning on electronics using your voice is still novel. Microsoft's Xbox One is representative of just such a novelty, pairing old tech like IR and HDMI passthrough with brand-new 1080p video capture and voice control -- all to impressive effect. When you turn on your Xbox One and TV in one fell "Xbox: On!" grandpa's gonna be wowed, as will little Suzie. Guaranteed. The deeply integrated fantasy sports and ESPN apps will no doubt get pigskin-obsessed Aunt Linda interested.
But it's not the expensive camera and sports partnerships that makes Microsoft's proposition impressive to the hardcore gaming faithful. The Xbox One is a beast of a games console, capable of running beautiful games. But can it serve two masters? It's not quite the game box we would've predicted, but it's the one we've got.
Hardware
The console
My word, that Xbox One console. Surprising no one, the Xbox One remains a relatively large black rectangle with little in the way of visual charms. A 45-degree angle cuts along the bottom front, giving the face a slightly squatter profile than the console's actual height. It looks an awful lot like a 1993 artist's rendering of 2013's technology. There's a hint of retro cool in that look, but it's more PT Cruiser than VW Beetle.
All told, Microsoft's new game system is no looker; it's a far cry from the Xbox 360's "inhale" design philosophy, that's for sure. The One is divided into quadrants fashioned out of a mix of glossy, black plastic and matte, black plastic. As is always the case with shiny, black plastic electronics, our Xbox One instantly got dirty. We're talking within the first day of living with it. This was our first of many signs that the Xbox One is meant to be plugged in, set up and rarely touched.
An entire half of the One's roof is taken up by a slotted vent, which helps cool the custom system-on-a-chip, 8GB of RAM and 500GB HDD within. On that note, the console is very, very quiet. Meanwhile, a slot-loading Blu-ray/DVD drive on the front-left offers the only front-facing opening, and it's thankfully surrounded by matte plastic. That means the only other fingerprint-prone spot is the touch-sensitive power button on the front-right, and even then, you might prefer to use your voice to turn on the console.
One of three USB 3.0 ports is located on the left side, just around the corner from the disc bay, which makes it easy to charge at least one device. Heading around back, a mess of ports is hidden away: the power socket, two more USB 3.0 connections, Gigabit Ethernet, HDMI-out and -in, powered USB (for Kinect) and optical audio. And that's it!
James Potter