In my longish hands, the Xbox 360 controller feels cramped, forcing me to curl my fingers in to reach the buttons, pad and sticks. With the new controller for the Xbox One, which Microsoft unveiled Tuesday, my fingers seemed to land naturally in the right place.
Navin Kumar, a Microsoft senior marketing manager, said the company tested the controller on gamers around the world, aged 14 to 40. That range seems to be missing a lot of people, but it takes in most gamers, and a wide variety of hands.
Following up on our coverage of the Xbox One launch, here are some more details and impressions from me, followed by a roundup from the tech media.
Sticking with the controller, I was told it better suited bigger and smaller hands, because its shape allowed for wider range of gripping options. Certainly, the elimination of the old battery bulge is a plus.
The new vibrator motors in the triggers allow for subtler impulses. A demonstration showed such sensations as a heartbeat, car ignition and gun shot. A change from mechanical to magnetic sensors allows the controller to register slighter movements, creating new options for game makers.
The thumbstick is smaller, and requires less force. Finally, data transfer is 15 to 20 percent faster.
The new Kinect sensor manages 3D imaging with about three times the fidelity of the existing Kinect, according to Scott Evans, group program manager for Kinect. It can, for instance, pick out a button on a shirt.
The color feed has about six times the fidelity of the current Kinect, he said.
The new sensor also has twice the field of view, picking up people on the edges of a room, and captures people much closer to it, a plus for those of us with small rooms.
Improvements in tracking capture such movements as the wiggle of a thumb, although other fingers all register together.
Finally, the sensor has less lag time.
Microsoft also demonstrated a simulated four-way video call on Skype. It looked quite cool, although Todd Roshak, lead program manager of Skype for Xbox, acknowledged the feature was still in development.
One question that was the cause of much discussion going into Tuesday was whether the new Xbox would have to always be online. On Tuesday, Xbox Live marketing lead Craig Davison said the console was designed to be online all the time, but the features you'd expect not to need an Internet connection would still work if it was disconnected.
As we wrote yesterday, Microsoft hasn't said how much Xbox One will cost or when it will be available (other than "later this year"). But you can sign up for notification of the system's availability here.
Here are some more Xbox details and reactions from the tech press.
Microsoft's message seems to have worked for Engadget, which wrote: "With tight fantasy sports integration, Windows 8 and Skype support and cooperation with live TV, the One looks to have taken the next step in transforming the Xbox from a gaming rig into a true home entertainment console."
GeekWire reported mixed reactions from a group of 14 Xbox fans watching the launch.
GeekWire's Todd Bishop also likes the controller; is "a little underwhelmed by the aesthetics of the actual console ... From a distance it's a relatively plain black box"; and thinks "the name Xbox One is clever. Better than Infinity or any of the other names that were rumored, in my opinion."
All Things D dug into the ability to record and post game play clips and the fact that cable will still own the living room.
BGR looked at how Xbox One appears to stack up against the upcoming Sony PlayStation 4, and concluded: "Based on what we know at this point, Sony has the edge in terms of specs and raw power." But, the site added, Microsoft appears to be putting a bigger emphasis on adding more home entertainment features.
The Wall Street Journal's Digits blog wrote that Sony, for the PlayStation 4, "dove head-first" into cloud gaming, where gamers play on a remote server, while Xbox One would use servers to add features to games played on the system.
TechCrunch also looked at the comparison with the PlayStation.
"(T)here wasn't one thing that left people saying 'PlayStation is screwed,'" the site's Josh Constine wrote.
This, and the complexities of integrating with live TV contributed to Microsoft stock closing down 0.66 percent on the day, he wrote. Sony closed up 9.25 percent, thanks to reports that it is considering spinning off its entertainment division.
The Wall Street Journal also quoted Don Mattrick, head of Microsoft's interactive entertainment business, dismissing concerns about the fact that Xbox One won't play games made for older systems.
Just 5 percent of customers play older games on a new game system anyway, he told The Journal, adding: "If you're backwards compatible, you're really backwards."
ZDNet's All About Microsoft looked into how the Xbox One will incorporate Windows (here and here).
On a funny note, Polygon reported that the Kinect voice commands executives issued in demonstrating the Xbox One during the rollout caused problems for viewers watching the event via Xbox.
Read more Microsoft and Tech news. Visit seattlepi.com's home page for more Seattle news.
Navin Kumar, a Microsoft senior marketing manager, said the company tested the controller on gamers around the world, aged 14 to 40. That range seems to be missing a lot of people, but it takes in most gamers, and a wide variety of hands.
Following up on our coverage of the Xbox One launch, here are some more details and impressions from me, followed by a roundup from the tech media.
Sticking with the controller, I was told it better suited bigger and smaller hands, because its shape allowed for wider range of gripping options. Certainly, the elimination of the old battery bulge is a plus.
The new vibrator motors in the triggers allow for subtler impulses. A demonstration showed such sensations as a heartbeat, car ignition and gun shot. A change from mechanical to magnetic sensors allows the controller to register slighter movements, creating new options for game makers.
The thumbstick is smaller, and requires less force. Finally, data transfer is 15 to 20 percent faster.
The new Kinect sensor manages 3D imaging with about three times the fidelity of the existing Kinect, according to Scott Evans, group program manager for Kinect. It can, for instance, pick out a button on a shirt.
The color feed has about six times the fidelity of the current Kinect, he said.
The new sensor also has twice the field of view, picking up people on the edges of a room, and captures people much closer to it, a plus for those of us with small rooms.
Improvements in tracking capture such movements as the wiggle of a thumb, although other fingers all register together.
Finally, the sensor has less lag time.
Microsoft also demonstrated a simulated four-way video call on Skype. It looked quite cool, although Todd Roshak, lead program manager of Skype for Xbox, acknowledged the feature was still in development.
One question that was the cause of much discussion going into Tuesday was whether the new Xbox would have to always be online. On Tuesday, Xbox Live marketing lead Craig Davison said the console was designed to be online all the time, but the features you'd expect not to need an Internet connection would still work if it was disconnected.
As we wrote yesterday, Microsoft hasn't said how much Xbox One will cost or when it will be available (other than "later this year"). But you can sign up for notification of the system's availability here.
Here are some more Xbox details and reactions from the tech press.
Microsoft's message seems to have worked for Engadget, which wrote: "With tight fantasy sports integration, Windows 8 and Skype support and cooperation with live TV, the One looks to have taken the next step in transforming the Xbox from a gaming rig into a true home entertainment console."
GeekWire reported mixed reactions from a group of 14 Xbox fans watching the launch.
GeekWire's Todd Bishop also likes the controller; is "a little underwhelmed by the aesthetics of the actual console ... From a distance it's a relatively plain black box"; and thinks "the name Xbox One is clever. Better than Infinity or any of the other names that were rumored, in my opinion."
All Things D dug into the ability to record and post game play clips and the fact that cable will still own the living room.
BGR looked at how Xbox One appears to stack up against the upcoming Sony PlayStation 4, and concluded: "Based on what we know at this point, Sony has the edge in terms of specs and raw power." But, the site added, Microsoft appears to be putting a bigger emphasis on adding more home entertainment features.
The Wall Street Journal's Digits blog wrote that Sony, for the PlayStation 4, "dove head-first" into cloud gaming, where gamers play on a remote server, while Xbox One would use servers to add features to games played on the system.
TechCrunch also looked at the comparison with the PlayStation.
"(T)here wasn't one thing that left people saying 'PlayStation is screwed,'" the site's Josh Constine wrote.
This, and the complexities of integrating with live TV contributed to Microsoft stock closing down 0.66 percent on the day, he wrote. Sony closed up 9.25 percent, thanks to reports that it is considering spinning off its entertainment division.
The Wall Street Journal also quoted Don Mattrick, head of Microsoft's interactive entertainment business, dismissing concerns about the fact that Xbox One won't play games made for older systems.
Just 5 percent of customers play older games on a new game system anyway, he told The Journal, adding: "If you're backwards compatible, you're really backwards."
ZDNet's All About Microsoft looked into how the Xbox One will incorporate Windows (here and here).
On a funny note, Polygon reported that the Kinect voice commands executives issued in demonstrating the Xbox One during the rollout caused problems for viewers watching the event via Xbox.
Read more Microsoft and Tech news. Visit seattlepi.com's home page for more Seattle news.