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to pick up a console that has been several years in the waiting, some other halves will be feeling as though they've been replaced by a plastic box that, to them, just plays games and streams movies as the last console did.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.
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 PlayStation 4 is just a week away, and the Xbox One will follow seven days later, and so we're now fully braced for an hourly tirade of announcements, revelations and leaks pertaining the next-gen consoles. A short while ago, Microsoft released a feature-length demo clip to YouTube essentially taking viewers on a walkthrough of the console - offering insight as to what it's like to play games, watch TV and use some of the many apps available at launch. If you're looking forward to the Xbox One or perhaps are simply on the fence, wondering which of the two powerhouses you wish to spend your money on, The 'Xbox One All-in-One Demo with Yusuf Mehdi and Marc Whitten' might just help with your dilemma.
Of the next-gen console launch titles, Battlefield 4 is - along with Call of Duty: Ghosts - the one that gamers are perhaps most looking forward to enjoying on the new hardware. As the gaming faithful continues to make decisions regarding whether to get the PlayStation 4 or the Xbox One, it does appear that Battlefield 4 fans will be getting some exciting Kinect integration should they choose the Microsoft console. The new and improved motion sensor will allow Battlefield 4 players to perform real-life, real-time peeking and leaning throughout, as well as using its voice detection feature to process voice commands.
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.
The frantic holiday shopping season typically kicks into overdrive during November and usually involves consumers picking up the latest and greatest tech to be offered by some of the world's largest household names. This year's focus will undoubtedly be front and center on the gaming industry, with Sony and Microsoft both pushing out new consoles during November, both of which will benefit from exceptional titles like Battlefield 4. But which platform will render the game better?
The release of GTA V has proved that despite the small matter of the next-gen console battle upcoming, there's still life in both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 yet. Sales of the current generation machines may have spiked slightly in light of Rockstar's record-breaking title, but with little under a month to go before we see the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 hit the retail market, it's high time we focused our attentions on these two major releases. Infinity Ward's Mark Rubin has just delivered some stonking news for Call of Duty fans by noting that Ghosts, the latest addition to the popular franchise, will run natively at 1080p on the PlayStation 4, and will be upscaled from 720p to full HD on Xbox One.
