I’ve already discussed the Wii U, and now I will be going over my thoughts on the successor to the XBox 360, the XBox One (they need to get their numbers straight).  I heard a lot of rumors about things Microsoft was planning to do, such as requiring people to connect to the Internet in order to play games and no longer allowing people to play used games, which were all things that made me worry a bit about the future of gaming.  This also made me decide, if these things weren’t changed, there was a good chance I wasn’t going to be buying this particular console.  Well, after reading more about it (information found on Wikipedia), some of my worries were eased, while others were not.

As I mentioned in my post about the Wii U, when I heard about this generation of consoles, it seemed these consoles were not so much about games anymore.  It seemed that game consoles were now about everything else they can do, and this suspicion remained when I read about all the things the XBox One was capable of in relation to videoconferencing and watching TV and other such non-game-related features.  In fact, most of the intro on this particular console was dedicated to all these features, with gaming almost as an afterthought at the end.  Many people will be glad, I suppose, that this console can do so many things, but when I buy a video game console, I want gaming to be the main emphasis, just as I don’t want to buy a DVD player (yes, I still use those) that does everything besides play DVD’s.

Well, I was able to find some information on the gaming aspect of this console, and so I will now share with you the good and the bad things that I found.  First off, let’s get the rumors sorted out.  While it was indeed true that Microsoft was originally not going to allow people to play used games on this console and would force people to connect to the Internet daily or else they couldn’t play their games, this is no longer the case.  After much unhappiness Microsoft caused by this news, they decided to allow the XBox One to play used games, and now people only need to connect to the Internet when first installing a game (as they have a very strange system of downloading a game to the hard drive, while still needing the disc).  This still may not be good for people with bad Internet connections, but it is a huge improvement over the previous ideas, at least.

I also suppose that it’s worth noting that the Kinect, which was originally an extra thing you could add to the 360, is now included on the One (I’m just trying to find a way to shorten the name of this console, but I don’t know how catchy it is; are they trying to trick me into thinking this console is “the one”?).  This leaves me feeling indifferent, as I never used the Kinect and don’t plan to, after finding that other people didn’t like it.  But, I suppose it’s fine if they want to add extra features (as long as I’m not paying extra because of it, and I probably am).  Oh, and just another little note.  This is the only one of the current consoles that doesn’t have a rechargeable battery in the controller, so make sure you’re still stocked up on AA’s for this console.

As for the most important part of a gaming console, the games, many people have complained that the games for the XBox One do not appear to be really any different from what we saw on the 360.  Having never played this console yet, I’ll just have to wait for any interesting games to be released and see what I think.  Though, for now, I can say the lack of backwards compatibility for this console is disappointing.  If it wasn’t silly enough that the Wii U was only backwards compatible with Wii games and not GameCube (because the Wii could play GCN games; why can’t you be more like the Wii, Wii U?), the XBox One is not backwards compatible with anything (even though I thought the 360 had limited backwards compatibility with the original XBox games).  It does, however, seem like older games may eventually be available through cloud gaming.  Yay, I get to spend extra money buying games I already own.

So in short, the XBox One has gotten rid of a lot of the features gamers were unhappy about, which is a huge plus for this console, as I really was unsure about buying it with such problems.  Nevertheless, while I did like the XBox 360, I am not impressed with this console or all its extra features that have nothing to do with gaming.  It can be good for some, but all the features it advertises are things I can already do with other machines I already own, and so whether or not I buy this console all depends on if any good games come out.

Honestly, though, I’ve never been a big XBox fan (no offense, but I’m more a PlayStation Duck myself), and I got the 360 for “Halo” and the new “Banjo-Kazooie” game (the latter was a mistake) and because the PS3 was too expensive for a while.  So for me, the only thing that might inspire me now to buy an XBox console is the “Halo” series, and as great as those games are, I no longer think I can justify spending so much money (especially with it being the most expensive console, at $500, $200 more than the Wii U and $100 more than the PS4) on a console that I will only play one series on.  Especially since I’ll still need the 360 in order to play the 360 games, and these consoles are bulky enough without having dozens of the things sitting around (especially since I think positioning the console vertically is extremely daring).  So after that long rant, I really don’t believe I’ll be buying this console.

The Duck Thinks the Next XBox Should Be the XBox D…