Okay, X-Box Reveal time.
*The Xbox employees do a little video and say the word "alive" a lot. Foreshadowing?
*"All your entertainment in one place!" Oh, joy. Never get tired of that phrase.
*"Can we improve the living room?" Once again, as a game player, this isn't sounding good.
*"An all in one entertainment system.... X-Box One" Wow. Okay, that's not the most impressive name.
*Oh, hey! They're showing the thing. Every bit of it. There's the main unit, a controller and kinect all shown at very close range. It's almost like they heard the complaints about Sony's conference.
*Back to X-Box One, wouldn't that be the first X-Box? Meh, whatever. Still better name than Wii-U.
*Oh hey. A gaming guy."We'll tell you more at E3." And hopes dashed there because he's back to the "all in one" thing. Hey! You can turn it on by voice! The XB1 also remembers what you were last doing, making it as current as my copy of Firefox circa 2006. And you can instantly watch TV on your XB1 by saying "XBox! Watch TV!" You can switch quickly between movies, games, tv, music and IE with gestures and vocals. Ah! The movie is Star Trek! Lens flares!!!!!
*Snap mode allows multiple windows to open, so you can watch a film and, say, web browse at the same time.
*Skype on XB1. It's windowed as well.
*And now ESPN. This is all great, but I'm a person who uses the console for, you know, gaming. I have a computer to do Skype and windows and stuff on. I guess it'll be useful for those who don't sit on the computer all day like I do.
*Heh. Twitter: those who had "It's going to be a Swiss Army set-top box" in the pool win! That reminds me that I need to check my XB Reveal bingo card later.
*"The beginning of truly intelligent TV!" so, does your XB1 only play The Wire or something?
*Tech stats just leaked. 8 GB ram, blu-ray, 500 GB hard drive. 1080p FOV.
*Talking about Kinect now. It's paired with the unit now and can alledgedly recognize the voice of every family member. Faster too. New sensor will better recognize your movements and can read your heartrate while you exercise. Hopefully it works at shorter distances as my living room still hasn't gotten any bigger.
*New controller- better triggers, better D-pad (huzzah!) and over 30 improvements over the old controller. Looks like it interacts with the Kinect as well.
*Smart glass will be native to the platform. No signs of a smart glass-y controller though. I suspect that the Wii-U's crashing may have altered some things there.
*Even more servers are added for XBox Live, more computer power than the world in 1999.
*More cloud talk- saves and movies saved to the cloud. Sidestepping the 'Always online" issue so far, which they've yet to say anything about. Still the big elephant in the room.
*A wild EA rep appears! EA and Microsoft are in a broad strategic partnership. Whatever that means. Four games for XB1- FIFA, Madden, NBA Live and UFC. All powered by a new game engine, "Blurring the line between real and virtual." Pro players are talking about reading the lines of the defense in Madden. Er, guys? I'm not a pro player. I don't really want to need that level of expertise to play the game. Hopefully that's just talk, rather than a requirement. New games will have 10 times the animation depth and detail over older engine. They'll reveal exclusive stuff for FIFA 14 soon. But not now.
*Still on the sports games, they're showing them and wow, Those models do look impressive. Almost photo-realistic for the players. If the end game looks that good, then wow.
*Exclusives time. First up- Forza 5. goodie. I love my little car games, even though my driving sucks. It'll be a launch title, but "more at E3." Blah. This guy can't pronounce Forza either, as it seems to now have a third syllable. Next, Remedy pops up with "Quantum Break." I've seen the trailer, but I'm still not sure what it's about. 15 exclusive games in the first year of XB1, 8 of which are new IPs. Well, that's good. New IPs are always nice.
*Someone who used to work at CBS arrives. She flubs some of her lines, which is always nice to see. "TV on Xbox will become social!" Great! I always love for my co-workers to know that I'm watching Bridezilla! And.... holy cow. Halo TV series. Live action. Directed by Spielberg. Wow. I guess Forward Unto Dawn was a success. More details- a premium series for XBL users. So, subscription based on top of subscription? Eh, I'll need to see it first.
*More ways to watch live sports on X-Box. Partnership with NFL for the upcoming season. Looks nice for fantasy football fans.
*Hmmm. Microsoft's stream is about 3-4 minutes behind everyone else's. Great job, Microsoft.
*Call of Duty: Ghosts will launch first on XB1. Sony's not going to be happy. Nor are the folks with 360s who'll need to upgrade to play it. Unless they want to wait a few weeks, but that's just silly. The guy who wrote Traffic wrote the plot for the single player campaign, which sounds very Red Dawn-y in nature. Plus, you have a dog. Not joking, you get to play a dog in some levels. Frankly, that does sound entertaining. The models look very impressive too. Heh. The poor German Shepard has those little motion capture balls attached to it's fur. Awww. Poor doggie.
*Side by side comparison of graphics from MW3 to Ghosts. Once again, pretty damn impressive, although I imagine that the graphics on the PS4 will be equally advanced. Its just impressive how much changes over just a few years. And then a trailer for the new game. Hey! A scuba level! What? The fish are pretty. And we'll see more at E3. It's over.
*Things not covered: Price, release date and that pesky "always need to be internet connected" thing that's been floated.