The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Xbox One

The Xbox One has been, since its reveal, heavily criticized due to many issues. In fact, you’ve probably heard more of the negative at this point than the positive. But if you’re looking for coverage on everything, the good, the bad AND the ugly, look no further.

The Good:

Achievements Carry Over:

A sigh of relief from all the long time Xbox gamers, your achievements will carry over from your Xbox 360. So all those thousands of points you garnered mastering the hardest difficulties of games and carrying out the most impossible tasks to perfection? No problem; you can still show those off to everyone.

Another achievement bonus?

They won’t be confined to single games. What does that mean? Well, say there’s 3 more Assassin Creeds lined up for the Xbox One. You could unlock achievements for playing all 3, or for completing certain tasks in 2 out of 3, or so on. It really brings some more originality (and probably a bit more difficulty) to the achievement system.

Possible TV achievements

Microsoft recently submitted a patent for TV achievements so as well as playing games and earning points you can also gain them for TV related tasks. Although details about these are sketchy we guess that if watch entire series of show you earn additional achievements or if you take part in a talent shows voting you can up your ‘Watcher Score’.

Auto Resume Games

Since Microsoft was really toting the all encompassing entertainment experience (say that three times fast), some were concerned with switching from a game to TV or to check out the weather or whatever you might want to do in the middle of your run through Watch Dogs. But the system will allow players to seamlessly auto resume where they switched off, thanks to it being saved through the cloud. Not only that, but you can switch between consoles when watching movies or playing a game seamlessly as well. Nice for multiple consoles in the home or logging in to a friend’s console.

Blu-Ray Player

It’s about time and maybe this comes a little too late, but finally, the Xbox One will have a built-in Blu-ray player. It was Sony’s big one-up in the last console race but now that blu-ray is becoming a staple, if Microsoft didn’t include this in their upcoming console, they’d be out of the race for good.

Built In game DVR

You can record gameplay moments and share them via the cloud. How it can be shared is still lacking detail, but it might end up being an easier way for people to upload “Let’s Play” videos and the like to YouTube. Of course, it’ll all be dependent on how long you can record and how much of a file you can save, so maybe the old fashion way will be better for those doing longer videos. Still, to easily share your tips and tricks for beating a boss or getting a special item is pretty neat.

The Bad:

Not Backwards Compatible

Although not any different than the PS4, the Xbox One will not be backward compatible. That means all your awesome Xbox 360 games will now sit and collect dust, unless you keep your 360 just to play them. Annoying for some, not a big deal to others, but it definitely hurt some people’s view of the console (and of Sony’s new console as well).

No TV DVR

Although there will be gaming DVR, it has been said by a Microsoft spokesperson the Xbox One will not offer any built-in TV DVR capabilities, which is what some people were really hoping for. After all, if television is such a big part of the marketing of the new console, wouldn’t DVR make sense? You will, however, be able to access your own DVR service via HDMI, so it’s not out completely.

No Self Publishing

Indie developers cannot self-publish on the Xbox One. Not that this is anything new; it’s the same setup as the Xbox 360 where indie developers need to strike a deal with Microsoft and cannot just release games on Xbox Live Arcade without prior approval. But in the age of systems like Ouya coming out, it might not be the best choice for them to make. On the other hand, it does keep some quality control on games developed.

XBLA May Be Phased Out

The key word here is “may” as it has yet to be confirmed. But the XBLA as we know it may be gone, come Xbox One release day. Obviously, it will still be available on the 360 (for how long, that will remain to be seen) but we could see big changes with the new console.

Only 500GB Hard drive

For next-gen, 500gb really isn’t a lot of space. Especially when you consider how easy it is to buy or upgrade a PC with a terabyte or more these days. And when you also think of everything that might be saved on it, outside of just games, your 500GB could fill up a lot faster than expected.

The Ugly

Pre-Owned Game Fees

It’s been confirmed that if you want to play a pre-owned game, you’ll have to pay a fee. Some are saying the fee will be the price of a new copy of the game. Whether that’s true or not, people are up in arms about not being to buy used or borrow a game.

Price Rumors

It’s rumored the system is going to be close to $600, which is the price that hurt the PS3 the first time around. Sure, it’s offering a lot, but no one wants to pay $600 for a console. It could really cut out a lot of potential buyers.

The dreaded fan

The new Xbox is said to have no power block which is a great move for the console, however this will then place additional heat pressure inside the console meaning a the fan will have to work overtime to compensate. This has the possibility of being rather noisy.