It's been largely good news for Microsoft on the Xbox One front since its release not very long ago, what with the Redmond firm announcing that it sold a million units within the first 24 hours of the console's lifecycle. Still, as with most big new hardware releases these days, it's not all been rainbows and sunshine in the world of Xbox, especially for some of the platform's early adopters.
The Xbox One has been on the market for just four days, and while the vast majority of those in ownership of Microsoft's latest and greatest console have been pleased with their purchase, a small faction have encountered the issue of grinding disc drives, or the dreaded "Sorry, We Can't Play This Disc" error. As we reported over the weekend, some Blu-ray drives start making clicking noises when attempting to load a game, and as a result, the Redmond outfit has begun the process of replacing them. It has now emerged, though, that the issue in some units can be solved, and whilst hardware fixes are often daunting or overly technical, this fix required little more than a couple of good, old-fashioned whacks.
Microsoft has announced that the launch of its new gaming console has marked the biggest launch in Xbox history. The Xbox One went on sale in multiple worldwide markets at midnight last night with the Redmond based company confirming that more than one million consoles were sold within the first 24-hours of sale.
The Xbox One has finally arrived today, one week later than its closest rival in the PlayStation 4, and save one or two seemingly isolated incidents pertaining dodgy disc drives, the launch seems to have been relatively smooth and dare we say incident free. One of the main attractions of the new console, besides the fact that it is considerably more powerful and plays a much better game than the Xbox 360, is the second-gen Kinect sensor, which has improved in many ways since the original launched back in 2010. Many of you who've gone to pick up the Xbox One will be getting to grips with some of its new and exciting features, but what won't be shipping is the handy cheat sheet posted online, detailing many voice commands and gestures that Microsoft has neglected to include with the in-the-box literature.
We've already seen Sony ride the peaks of the next-generation console wave with their PlayStation 4 launch six days ago and now it's the turn of Microsoft. With over one million PlayStation 4 consoles sold on the first day of sale in the North American region, Sony will undoubtedly be classing the first few days of availability as clear success for their product. With the Xbox One launching in multiple territory at the stroke of midnight last night the emphasis is well and truly on Microsoft to capitalize on a captive market, but what are your opinions on the Xbox One, and more importantly, will you be showing your appreciation for the hardware with your hard-earned money?
Here at Redmond Pie HQ, we place a great deal of value on working hard and getting the job done. We would never condone frivolously boycotting your responsibilities and commitments in favor of pursuing some other kind of more interesting leisure activity. However, we do make a few exceptions to that rule, one of which is that it's actually alright if the leisure activity involves spending some extremely important alone time with the Xbox One and Xbox LIVE. We can't get you out of work or family commitments, but thankfully the Xbox Doctor’s Note service has you well and truly covered.
Microsoft's "Scroogled" campaign, a series of ads that takes on Google's products and services regarding policies and privacy, has been running for around a year now, and today, the company has taken things up a notch or two by making Scroogled memorabilia available over at the the Microsoft Store. Ranging from mugs to items of clothing bearing the Scroogled mantra, it seems that the software maker's smear campaign is far from over, and if you happen to be an advocate of the movement, now you can even have yourself a (lousy) t-shirt.
Microsoft is busy getting ready for its Xbox One release around the globe, but that doesn't mean that it hasn't been able to find time to release a new Xbox One edition of its SmartGlass app that allows owners of smartphones and tablets to interact with their new game console without having to pick up a controller.
Microsoft’s Xbox One console is just a few days away from public availability, and the company is bound to make it a success by any means necessary. As if all the promotions and advertisements weren’t enough, now the Redmond company has made a new announcement of free access to select few Xbox One titles on a monthly basis for the subscribers of Xbox LIVE Gold.
As both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 reach thousands of homes around the globe with time, there are going to be a ton of questions that need some serious answering from the get go from buyers who haven't made their decision which next-gen console to go for. As reviews of the two gaming giants begin to trickle through and people are beginning to see what can be achieved by this new generation of hardware, there's one question that probably isn't on the lips of many gamers, but we're going to answer it for you anyway!
