Microsoft Reveals New Next-Gen Console: Xbox One

It's an intriguing looking device. Its design somewhat reflects that of the yin-yang symbol, but upon closer inspection this seems to be not a design choice, per se, but rather due to large sections of the console covered in a grill mesh, likely to prevent the initial overheating issues the Xbox 360 shipped with.

The controller has seen very little in the way of change aside from the Xbox Guide button being shunted up an inch or two, as well as a new block being mounted at the top. Fans of the current controller should be happy as the Xbox One's controller seems to be following in its footsteps. 

Thankfully, there doesn't seem to be any touch-screen nonsense that's likely to push forward the impending doom that is the conjoining of gaming and social networking, but there is something equally as threatening and that comes in the shape of what appears to be a toppled over HAL-9000.

Yes, Microsoft's Kinect is also receiving an upgrade, though instead of it being perhaps improved game support or maybe increasing the accessibility of the product, it's been given the rather alarming feature of it being able to detect a person's heartbeat.

Now, it's all well and good being able to control a console with actions and movements, but for that device to detect a living pulse in a room should be ringing alarm bells for privacy enthusiasts everywhere. And before you say anything, yes, I am currently sporting my tin foil hat.

Joking and privacy issues aside, it does seem to open up a lot of things for the potential direction of Kinect and presumably with that comes a substantial amount of new games, hopefully exclusive to the Xbox One, especially since it ships with the console.

As you'd expect, there wasn't much detail given about the technical specification of the Xbox One. It's likely that this information will be revealed during Microsoft's presentation at E3, but hopefully they'll release teaser information before then.

What we were told during Microsoft's reveal event was that the Xbox One will contain 8GB of DDR3 RAM and multiple operating systems (and the ability to switch instantly between them), but aside from that, it seems to be very similar to the PlayStation 4.

Both will contain USB 3.0 support as well as largely focusing on cloud storage. For the first time, the Xbox One will contain a blu-ray drive and as expected, the PlayStation 4 will contain one also. Both devices will also feature an 8 core CPU.

Until we find out more detail, it's hard to draw a conclusion as to which device will perform better.

EA announced during the event that they were going to be working closely with Microsoft, which means that there was a barrage of sporting games presented. Amongst these were FIFA 14, Madden 14, NBA 2K14 and UFC 14.

EA displayed how they were going to create living, breathing worlds for the 3D renderings of our favourite athletes and sports-people to compete in, as well as being able to make the games adapt and differ on a day to day basis if connected to Xbox Live.

This is definitely an interesting partnership and hopefully will bear glorious gaming fruits once the Xbox One is finally released. As with all early game reveals, there wasn't much in the way of actual gameplay, but the few seconds that were presented did seem impressive.

Hints that some features of FIFA 14 are going to be Xbox One exclusive were also dropped, though it's unclear as to what these features might be.

The other large game reveal was Call of Duty: Ghosts. It has to be said, I'm always one of those people that get sucked into purchasing a game if it's got a good trailer and up until this event, I wasn't sold on CoD:Ghosts. 

However, the reveal trailer shown was exceptional and so long as it provides more than just a change of gun textures and a different map roster, it should become a very good game - something I was very unlikely to have said a day ago.

Again, not much was shown in terms of gameplay, most of the content was either cutscenes or misleading comparisons between ingame footage of Modern Warfare 3 and fully rendered close up face shots of the models in Ghosts, but this is what we've come to expect from the gaming industry.

Microsoft continued their trend of attempting to conglomerate every single device within a 10 yard radius of your television by announcing that they wanted the Kinect to be connected to, and in control of, pretty much everything.

Naturally, this means that the Kinect will have to be always on and always listening and I'm not sure if I'm entirely comfortable with that, he said, donning his tin foil hat again. The concept of it is a good one, but as far as I'm aware, people like to be in control of their devices, not governed by the whim of their Kinect.

However, one of the most concerning things stated at the event was that Microsoft are attempting to matchmake, saying that "you and your TV will have a relationship". Again, call me boring, but I'm really not expecting nor wanting to have a relationship with an inanimate object.

Besides, at the current rate of things, it won't be long before the Kinect develops feelings and becomes jealous. And then we'll be in for it.