The Xbox One may be hitting the scene later, cost more, and be technically inferior in terms of raw gaming power than the PlayStation 4, but it's certainly not all doom and gloom. After all, Microsoft's forthcoming games machine succeeds the Xbox 360, a console that toppled the PlayStation 3 in this current generation, and allied to the second-gen Kinect peripheral - derivative of the immensely popular original Kinect - the interactivity both in motion sensing and voice recognition will be vastly superior to anything the PS4 will have to offer. With this in mind, Larry Hryb - better known as Xbox LIVE's Major Nelson - has demonstrated just how quickly one can boot up the Xbox One using the simple "Xbox On" voice command.
The Xbox One will be hitting stores late next week, and although we've been dealt a deluge of information from both official and unofficial channels already, new revelations are being made on an almost hourly basis. In the latest, the guys over at NeoGAF have been looking into game install size and discovered that some titles will command up to 43GB of storage space, which is a colossal amount of real estate by anybody's standards.
I don't think it's too much of a statement to make that when the Xbox One finally arrives later on this months, relationships are going to be affected. As avid gamers go out and possibly queue for hours to pick up a console that has been several years in the waiting, some other halves will be feeling as though they've been replaced by a plastic box that, to them, just plays games and streams movies as the last console did. But while the general demographic of the console gamer tends to be young males, the latest Xbox One ad flips things a little, with the female taking the traditional position of the guy. It's mildly humorous, and we've embedded the 30-second clip below for your viewing pleasure.
As we move closer and closer to an official public launch, it's fair to say that the rivalry between Sony and Microsoft is well and truly heating up. Undecided consumers will soon be faced with one of the toughest video gaming decisions that they have had to make in the last few years: should they purchase Sony's PlayStation 4 or Microsoft's Xbox One? As you might expect, both companies are involved in their own final promotional campaigns ahead of the hardware launch with Microsoft France taking a leaf out of the Sony France book by creating the Xbox One Hotel.
It's fairly accurate to suggest that Microsoft won't be overly pleased with the fact that certain retail partners have jumped the gun a little when it comes to deliveries of the Xbox One console. We know of at least two Xbox One pre-order customers who have received the hardware weeks ahead of schedule thanks to a large glitch on Target's stock holding and delivery matrix. The requirement to run through the Day One initial update means that the receivers of the hardware really can't experience the Xbox One to its full potential, but it does offer us a rare opportunity to look at the latest Microsoft creation in greater detail and learn a little more about how it performs.
Both Microsoft and Sony are currently battling out to grab as much headline space as possible in the run-up to the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, and with the former having been given a twelve minute walk through video detailing the Xbox One Dashboard, it has now been revealed that gamers can go ahead an test out the console at Microsoft Stores across United States and Canada, 75 stores in total. Unfortunately, you can only play Forza Motorsport 5 at this particular time, but with just a couple of weeks to wait until the real thing becomes available to purchase, it should be enough to whet the appetites of gamers far and wide.
The Xbox One and PlayStation 4 are almost ready for the anxious gaming world to enjoy, and with just a couple of weeks to go until both machines hit the retail market, both Microsoft and Sony are currently on the campaign trail to woo gamers. Yesterday, Sony detailed some of the TV and movie apps for PS4 to be available from the get-go including Netflix and Hulu Plus, and today, Microsoft has done the same by unveiling the video apps already prepared for Xbox One early adopters. Catch the details after the leap.
With the Xbox One now just a few weeks from retail, many of the key details pertaining Microsoft's next-gen games console have already been revealed. But naturally, the Redmond has been saving some info for the build up to the release, and as we swiftly approach this all-important time frame, it has been revealed that every purchaser of the Xbox One will also get free access to Xbox Music, the streaming audio service to which many Xbox fans will already be accustomed. Unfortunately, it is ad-supported, so you will have to listen to numerous plugs for products and services you probably do not want, but nevertheless, this is definitely a win for music heads.
Windows 8.1 and OS X Mavericks may be the two foremost operating systems available at desktop level, but they weren't always as slick, intuitive and feature-rich as they appear in the present day. Over the past 30+ years, the respective OSes for PC and Mac have seen many changes, and although we certainly couldn't go through a day using the old software from the eighties, nostalgic heads will probably want to check out an interesting Web-based emulator that runs both Windows 1.01 And Mac OS System 7. It's certainly a bit of a throwback, and even if you're not perhaps old enough to remember either of these vintage release, it's definitely worth taking a peek.
This handy little guide will help you download Windows 8.1 ISO file from Microsoft. It will allow you to update an existing installation of Windows 8, so that saves you the download time and cost, especially if you’re on a metered connection or have multiple PCs that need to be upgraded to Windows 8.1.
