Re: The Official Xbox Thread

[Pedram]

http://www.ign.com/blogs/falcon-x32/2013/06/19/microsft-and-their-lack-of-integrity/

[Firenze]

well the ps4 is still cheaper, more powerful, and doesn't come with a mandatory spying device in your living room...

it's still a no brainer, PS4 seems the way to go for me. This just means I'll eventually buy an xbox too, probably when they've revised the god awful design after a couple of years.

[Great Leader Sprucenuce]

but but but always online is necessary because cloud gaming will create an entirely new experience

Tbf once we are in the middle of the generation it probably will ( for both systems)

But there's no need to be always online 24 hr check in thing for that to happen.

[McLewis]

Think I'm still leaning towards PS4. Damage has already been done by Microsoft.

Then again...I'm probably still going to get them both eventually anyway.

[VendettaRed07]

I don't think this damages microsoft. They got a crap ton of free advertising even though most of it was about as bad as that can get, none of that matters anymore because everything that was preventing anyone who was against all the policies won't effect them anymore.

I still think the PS4 will end up edging out the One, but MS saved themselves from a complete disaster. Better pull off the bandaid now rather than wait for it to get worse. They still have 5 months to clean up their image

Firing their PR people like Don Mattrick would be a good start. Nobody likes him anyways they can market it in a different light if different people are pushing it

[Jonathan28]

Actually, this could very well damage microsoft, they have essentially abandoned those who were interested in the 180's innovative features like being able to share and sell digital games, being able to authenticate a game disk then never have to use the disk again etc, and have instead caved into the demands of people who weren't going to buy the console either way due to the higher price. Their post-E3 comments about sticking with their policies no matter what aren't going to help them either.

There's already many people cancelling their 180 pre-orders because there's nothing special about it now, every intresting feature is gone, it's just an upgraded 360, the cloud thing is also dead in the water, don't expect to ever hear MS mention it again. Its all come down to price and hardaware, people aren't going to cancel their PS4 pre-orders for a more expensive and weaker console, especially one with Kinect. MS policies were misguided but stuff like the family sharing made people overlook that.

[Bellabong]

It was just terrible PR. The 24hour madatory check was spun without mentioning the possible bonuses. Sharing digital copies? Not even possible on Steam (it is rumoured though). Massive sales? Only needing the disc once?

Announcing mandatory Kinect when the NSA's PRISM project was leaked? Don Mattrick?

It was a clusterf*ck of bad PR.

[AmarillaDirecta]

The PS3 leads the 360 world wide in sale except in the USA.

With everything the playstation 4 has to offer, and considering how ridiculous Microsoft has looked, and also many other variables, i honestly think the xbox one will not be on top of the ps4 in sales. No no.

They ended up looking like assholes and when my xbox live runs out of my pretty much broken 360 ill personally take it outside and smash it into smitherines.

[Bellabong]

You don't want 2 free games per month which you get to keep even if your sub runs out? (Which is pretty groundbreaking)

[AmarillaDirecta]

Theres a million reasons why the answer is a simple No.

At this point i have about 28 days left of Xbox live, im so selective in gaming atm that i wont play more than 4 or 5 different games a year, and getting two free games that i will probably have no reason to play is quite laughable really.

I just want to get my sledgehammer and let it rip at this point.

[Great Leader Sprucenuce]

Actually, this could very well damage microsoft, they have essentially abandoned those who were interested in the 180's innovative features like being able to share and sell digital games, being able to authenticate a game disk then never have to use the disk again etc, and have instead caved into the demands of people who weren't going to buy the console either way due to the higher price. Their post-E3 comments about sticking with their policies no matter what aren't going to help them either.

There's already many people cancelling their 180 pre-orders because there's nothing special about it now, every intresting feature is gone, it's just an upgraded 360, the cloud thing is also dead in the water, don't expect to ever hear MS mention it again. Its all come down to price and hardaware, people aren't going to cancel their PS4 pre-orders for a more expensive and weaker console, especially one with Kinect. MS policies were misguided but stuff like the family sharing made people overlook that.

I highly disagree there are plenty of features which set it apart and no the cloud push isn't going anywhere it is a key compotent of their vision for the new Xbox and that isn't going to change simply because they are allowing people to play without 24 hr check ins.

[Bellabong]

>The thing is we suck at telling the story. The whole point of the DRM switch from disc based to cloud based is to kill disc swapping, scratched discs, bringing discs to friends house, trade-ins for shit value with nothign going back to developers, and high game costs. If you want games cheaper then 59.99, you have to limit used games somehow. Steam's model requires a limited used game model.



>The thing is, the DRM is really really similar to steam... You can login anywhere and play your games, anyone in your house can play with the family xbox. The only diff is steam you have to sign in before playing, and Xbox does it automatically at night for you (once per 24 hours)



>It's a long tail strategy, just like steam. Steam had it's growing pains at the beginning with all it's drm shit as well. [...] For digital downloads steam had no real competition at the time, they were competing against boxed sales. At the time people were pretty irate about steam, (on 4chan too...) It was only once they had a digital marketplace with DRM that was locked down to prevent sharing that they could do super discounted shit.



>Think about it, on steam you get a game for the true cost of the game, 5$-30$. On a console you have to pay for that PLUS any additional licenses for when you sell / trade / borrow / etc. If the developer / publisher can't get it on additional licenses (like steam), then they charge the first person more. [...] If we say "Hey publishers, you limit game to 39.99, we ensure every license transfer you get 10$, gamestop gets 20$" that is a decent model... Microsoft gets a license fee on first and subsequent game purchases, compared to just first now? That's a revenue increase.



>Competition is the best man, it helps drive both to new heights. See technology from the Cold War. If we had no USSR, we'd be way worse off today. TLDR: Bring it on Steam



2/4



>Yeah we passed that around the office at Xbox. Most of us were like "Well played Sony, Well played". That being said they are just riding the hype train of ZOMG THEY ARE TRYING TO *bleep* US FOR NO REASON. Without actually thinking about how convienent it would be for the majority of the time to not find that disc your brother didn't put back... [...] just simpleminded people not seeing the bigger picture. Some PS4 viral team made them all "U TOOK R DISCS" and they hiveminded.



>Everyone and their mother complains about how gamestop *bleep* them on their trade ins, getting 5$ for their used games. We come in trying to find a way to take money out of gamestop, and put some in developers and get you possibly cheaper games and everyone bitches at MS. Well, if you want the @#$@ing from Gamestop, go play PS4.



>The goal is to move to digital downloads, but Gamestop, Walmart, Target, Amazon are KIND OF *bleep* ENTRENCHED in the industry. They have a lot of power, and the shift has to be gradual. Long term goal is steam for consoles. [...] If you always want to stay with what you have, then keep current consoles, or a PS4. We're TRYING to move the industry forwards towards digital distribution... it'sa bumpy road



>Publishers have enourmous power. Microsoft is trying to balance between consumer delight, and publisher wishes. If we cave to far in either direction you have a non-starting product. WiiU goes too far to consumer, you have no 3rd party support to shake a stick at. PS4 is status-quo. XB1 is trying to push some things, at the expense of others. We have a vision, we'll see if it works in the coming years



>Living room transformation. We want to own the living room. Every living room TV with an XBox on input one. It's the thing that gives the signal to your TV, everything is secondary. The future, where games, TV, internet telephony, all that shit happens magically on some huge ass screen with hand / voice gestures... That's our goal.





3/4



>Google TV + PS4 + Minority report level gestures, that combined with a sick second screen experience (which is really hot for TV, I know I know.. tv tv tv tv tv... but it's *bleep* sick when you have it). Games will be the same, there are more exclusives to MS then PS atm, and Kinect 2 makes Kinect 1 look like a childs toy.



>By default it's on, listening for "Xbox On". You can turn it off tho, and turn the console like OFF off. OFF off is required for Germany / other countries that require it (no vampire appliances) [...] It has to be plugged in for the console to post. You can turn off everything it does from the settings. Think of it like airplane mode for the iPhone. You can't just unplug the cellular radio, but you can turn it off.



>Instead of 10mins, is 24hrs for your console, and 1 or 2 at a friends house. Really the majority of people have a speck of internet at least once a day. And if you don't. Don't buy an Xbox 1. Just like if you didn't have a broadband connection don't get Live, and if you don't have an HDTV the 360 isn't that great for you either. New tech, new req. This allows us to do cool shit when we can assume things like you have a kinect, you have internet, etc.



>Current plan is basically you're *bleep* after 24 hours. Yeah... I know. Kind of sucks. I believe they will probably revist the time period and / or find a diff way to "call in" to ensure you haven't sold your license to gamestop or something... but there is no plan YET. I'm hoping the change it, but I don't work on that so I don't have much influence there /sigh



>If the power goes out you ain't playing shit. I'm assuming you mean the internet goes out but you have power for TV and Xbox. Yes, You're *bleep* for single player games. Again, that's the PoR (Plan of record), but I expect it to change after the e3 *bleep*



>What fee? There is no fee to play your games at your friends house. Never has, never will. Even x360 digital downloads could do that.





4/4



>The cloud capabilities is the shit they like the most. We basically made a huge cloud compute shit and made it free. What people are doing with it is kind of cool. THe original intention was to get all the Multiplayer servers not requiring 3rd party costs (Like EA shutting down game servers to cut costs), as well as taking all the games that servers hosted by the clients (Halo, etc), and have all that compute done in the cloud allowing more CPU cycles for gameplay. That will really expand what developers can do. Anything that doesn't need per frame calculation and can handle 100ms delays can be shifted to the cloud. That's huge.



>SmartGlass + IE is going to be pretty freaking sweet. 1 finger cursor, 2 finger direct manip. Basically if you think of a laptop trackpad where your phone/ slate is the trackpad and the monitor is your TV... it's that. The tech is there, just needs to be applied. There is some really cool shit going on with Petra + controllers that pairs people with controllers. So if person with controller two trades controlers with controller 1, their profiles magically switch. It's sick. What does this matter? Now if you lean left/right it knows which person is leaning, even if 4 people are all int he same room. It's awesome.



>New service using Azure for cloud compute. Allows developers to not use clients for hosting multiplayer servers, or other tasks that do not require per frame calcuations. It's pretty sweet.



>Honestly, if you care about anything other then pure games AT ALL. Xbox 1 > PS4. If all you do is play games, and nothing else, PS4.



This was all from the Microsoft engineer that was on /b/ last night.



>It's not worth my time to prove it, or risk my Job. I work in Studio A, 40th ave in Redmond, Wa. The thai place in the studio cafeteria has double punch wednesdays. Go ahead and call them and verify if you want.

Late I know, but the if legit pretty much spot on with how I felt about the 24hr check.

[che]

ah, a microsoft engineer saying xbox > playstation, the pinnacle of objective information

and can we please stop assuming that they want to become the new valve and sell games at reasonable prices? there is absolutely none basis for that whatsoever, i'd love to hear of a microsoft product that has an overwhelming market share and is priced accessibly... what would happen is that microsoft would control the pricing of everything once they kill the retail used market, like i said before

this entire "oh we designed it for supercool cloud features" is laughable too... pretty much every single publicly traded company gives zero *bleep* about the consumer or innovative features for the sake of bringing out innovative features, the entire reason the drm was there was to kill used games so microsoft would be able to control 100% of the pricing, either through their own distribution or through their approved retailers... consumers responded by shitting on them and that strategy, and someone high up made a decision to reverse this idiotic policy after seeing the laughably low preorder numbers, that's all there is to it

they literally abandoned the entire supposed architecture of the console with one decision, that's not something you do after you've invested a lot of time and money into perfecting it

[BarrileteCosmico]

m.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jun/20/xbox-one-uturn-was-microsoft-right

Very much worth a read

[Bellabong]

According to Mr. Paranoia above you it's not. "Microsoft will raise the prices once they control the pricing". Listen yourself holy shit. You sound like MSFT killed your mother on your birthday.

[VendettaRed07]

Look, There's a reason as to why the policies have changed. And its not because people are dumb and don't understand how much better all these restrictions where going to magically make console gaming maybe slightly better in the next decade or so. People weren't take having to give up all these rights as consumers without getting any sort of benefits that were even close to being worth it, in return. There is zero reason to require an internet connection and block used games, this generation. Either come out and offer a cheaper downloadable only console or don't. This halfway stuff forcing you to buy retail games that you don't have control over doesn't make any sense right now.

Games wouldn't have been cheaper as the rules stood, there's no reason to believe that it would. Steam has such great deals because they have to battle piracy. Thats not even 1/100th the issue on Consoles as it is on pc. There are so many different ways to get games on the PC, steam isn't the only option, therefore they have to be as competitive as possible. Therefore have no reason to believe MS would lower prices just to be the nice guy. MS will NEVER be like steam. Even if retail died tomorrow. Because once you buy a console you are under complete control on how you get and play your games with an always connected console. You can play games on PC and never even download steam. You can't do that on Xbox.

Thinking "people who where against this just haven't thought it through" is a lame argument. People have thought it through, maybe there would have been some nice features added but how much sacrifice would come with it would not be worth it in the slightest. People aren't interested in a "slow steps towards the greater good" They want a good system now, not suffer for half a decade and possibly get cheaper games that are downloadable only console next generation.

The system will be better now, will be more accessible and successful. just let it go.

[che]

According to Mr. Paranoia above you it's not. "Microsoft will raise the prices once they control the pricing". Listen yourself holy shit. You sound like MSFT killed your mother on your birthday.

that's how economics work sunshine, read the wikipedia entry on supply and demand, plus i never said they would raise prices, just laughed at the assumption they would magically lower them... read the wikipedia entry on reading comprehension too

steam has to lower prices because they are in contention with a) piracy and b) a bajillion other sellers of digital downloads... if microsoft has a monopoly on digital downloads AND can dictate prices through a list of approved retailers AND controls the hardware platform on which the software is distributed there is absolutely zero incentive for them to lower prices so long as people keep buying it... i have absolutely no *bleep* idea where all this "this will lead to low prices" is coming from, if you can come up with a reason why microsoft would be interested in significantly lowering the price while it's effectively the only supplier and the product is in high demand please enlighten me

or, if that doesn't work, please provide examples of microsoft selling relevant products at deep discount because at the moment ms office is selling for 70 pounds per year

[Jonathan28]

The truth finally comes out about the 180's Family Sharing plan. It was going to be 10 people having access to one persons full gaming library and vice versa to play, but the part they neglected to tell people was that they would only be allowed to play the game for 60mins before being taken to the marketplace and prompted to buy the game. It was a glorified trial system.

Think to the PS3's feature where you can download a full game for free and trial it for an hour before being prompted to buy it, this was the same thing but just on a bigger scale with the games on your family members consoles. MS spokesman intentionally misled people with this feature, there was no mention of the catch at all. MS are lucky MF'ers because the backlash at launch when the truth came out would have been huge.

It's funny, re-reading the 180's small print shows that they stealth mentioned the catch. Remember that part about only being able to play a game tied to your console for 1 hour on another console? MS are cheeky MF'ers.

[M99]

Despite Microsoft's recent reversal to make Xbox One more appealing, economist and author Rafi Mohammed told Bloomberg "I still think the price is too high."

To contend with Sony's PlayStation 4, Mohammed said, Kinect must become optional, "an a la carte purchase," which would bring Xbox One closer to Sony's $399 price point. Mohammed also said this issue "should have been caught early on," as it shows "this has the potential to really derail Xbox One for the upcoming holiday season."

[M99]

Following recent rumors about changes to Xbox One hardware, Microsoft confirmed today that the clock speed of Xbox One has been increased. Speaking on Major Nelson’s podcast, Xbox One chief product officer Marc Whitten explained that as the system approaches launch, Microsoft has made a few changes to finalize internal specs.

“This is the time when we’ve gone from the theory of how the hardware works - what we think the yield is going to look like, what is the thermal envelope, how do things come together - to actually having it in our hands,” Whitten explained. “That’s the time when you really start tweaking the knobs. Either your theory was dead on or you were too conservative or you were a little too aggressive. And an example of that is we’ve tweaked up the clock speed on our GPU, from 800 MHz to 853 MHz. Just an example of how you really start landing the program as you get closer to launch.”

Whitten also confirmed that Xbox One’s graphics driver has been changed, explaining, “This is the time where developers have the final dev kits in their hands and are really working closely with us on how things have come together. Since E3, an example is we’ve dropped in what we internally call our ‘mono driver.’ It’s our graphics driver that really is 100% optimized for the Xbox One hardware.”

“It’s a super exciting time,” Whitten said. “This is the time when you’ve gone from all of these specs and all of these arguments over the last several years to having the product, and really starting to try it internally. We’re running our internal beta and using it at home and starting to see the product really come together.”


Whitten also discussed Microsoft’s recent changes to indie publishing, reiterating that more details will be coming at Gamescom in Germany (likely during Microsoft’s Xbox One showcase on August 20th).

“The team is working really hard,” Whitten concluded. “The team is so passionate about shipping a great product so that people have a great experience come this fall. We’re just very, very focused on continuing to use the beta, take feedback, really refine the experience, work with our content partners. Every day it’s about ‘how do we make Xbox One better today?’”

Xbox One is currently scheduled to launch in November for $499 / £429 / €499 / AU$599. The console is still available for pre-order, though Day One editions are currently sold out at most retailers.

[Juveman17]

Still not getting it

The only way i would reconsider is if they brought the price down by $100 and stopped forcing people to buy the Kinect

[M99]

Microsoft has outlined in greater detail its recently revealed reputation system for Xbox One, explaining the specifics of the new system in an Xbox Wire post penned by Microsoft’s Michael Dunn, program manager on Xbox Live.

“If you don’t want to play with cheats or jerks, you shouldn’t have to,” writes Dunn. “Our new reputation model helps expose people that aren’t fun to be around and creates real consequences for trouble-makers that harass our good players.”

Your reputation score will ultimately see you slotted into one of three, colour-coded groups: “Good Player” (green), “Needs Improvement” (yellow), or “Avoid me” (red). Where you sit on this spectrum will be reflected on your gamer card.

“The more hours you play online without being a jerk, the better your reputation will be; similar to the more hours you drive without an accident, the better your driving record and insurance rates will be,” explains Dunn. “Most players will have good reputations and be seen as a “Good Player.” The algorithm is looking to identify players that are repeatedly disruptive on Xbox Live.”

“We’ll identify those players with a lower reputation score and in the worse cases they will earn the “Avoid Me” reputation. Before a player ends up with the “Avoid Me” reputation level we will have sent many different alerts to the “Needs Improvement” player reminding them how their social gaming conduct is affecting lots of other gamers.”

Dunn goes on to assure players the reputation algorithm is sophisticated enough to recognise when it may be being abused, confirming you will not be penalised for a few bad reports.

“Even good players might receive a few player feedback reports each month and that is OK,” writes Dunn. “The algorithm weighs the data collected so if a dozen people suddenly reporting a single user, the system will look at a variety of factors before docking their reputation.”

“We’ll verify if those people actually played in an online game with the person reported – if not, all of those player’s feedback won’t matter as much as a single person who spent 15 minutes playing with the reported person. The system also looks at the reputation of the person reporting and the alleged offender, frequency of reports from a single user and a number of other factors.”

“This system will continue to evolve and get better as we track the feedback we get from players and titles, plus add more consequences for the jerks.”

[M99]

In addition to reversing its used game DRM policies for Xbox One, Microsoft has revealed that the console will no longer require Kinect to function. In our latest Ask Microsoft Anything, Xbox Corporate Vice President Marc Whitten revealed that Xbox One owners will be able to use all of the console's core functions regardless of whether the new Kinect sensor is connected. Naturally, many of the tentpole features of the new Kinect, such as player identification, voice commands, etc., will be disabled as a result, but players will still be able to play games and access entertainment content.

The news represents yet another significant revision to the company's next-gen strategy. Shortly after E3 in June, Microsoft announced that it had revised its plans to restrict used games and require a constant online connection in order for the Xbox One to function following backlash from the fan community. What remained unclear, however, was whether owners would still be obligated to have the Kinect sensor connected and, perhaps more importantly, what would happen if the peripheral became damaged or ceased to function.

Most importantly, Microsoft's decision to abandon mandatory Kinect connectivity opens the doors for a cheaper, Kinect-free version of the system.

[M99]

Much of Europe will now be waiting until 2014 for the Xbox One.
by Chris Pereira AUGUST 14, 2013
SUBMIT TWEET SHARE +1 SHARE

Microsoft will launch the Xbox One in only 13 markets around the world later this year, and not 21 as it had announced at this year's E3.

Those 13 still include major markets like the United States and United Kingdom, as well as Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Spain, and New Zealand. These countries will see the Xbox One released in November.

Other countries that had expected to see the One this year will instead be getting it "as soon as possible in 2014," including Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and Switzerland. It was previously confirmed that Japan wouldn't see the console until next year.

The original plan to launch in 21 markets was described as "an aggressive goal" in a message posted online by the Xbox Leadership Team today. "While we wish we could launch Xbox One simultaneously in these markets, there are many factors that determine the timing of specific market launches," the statement explains. "This includes work to localize the Xbox One dash, incorporate additional voice and languages, and build partnerships to bring apps and meaningful local content to each country.

"We understand this will be disappointing news for our fans in the impacted countries, and we are doing everything we can to bring Xbox One to you as soon as possible next year."

In order to make up for the delay, those who have already pre-ordered the Day One edition of the system in affected countries will receive a free pack-in game with their console, though just what game this will be was not identified.

[M99]

Microsoft is teasing a new Xbox One exclusive set to be announced at Gamescom. On Major Nelson’s podcast, Microsoft Studios corporate vice president Phil Spencer discussed Gamescom and what fans can expect from the show and Microsoft’s Showcase event.

“We’re gonna have a really short stage presentation with some news, talking about some unique exclusive coming to the platform,” Spencer said. “We’re going to talk about Europe’s biggest franchise and maybe some interesting things. We have some stuff, but most of the time will be spent with the press getting time with the developers, with their games. So you should think about this as a room with a lot of hands-on. We think that these platforms are about the games, and we want to give the press time with the games.”

Spencer elaborated, explaining that he believes “there’s no better way than having developers talk about what they’re getting out of the platform, whether it’s cloud functionality, Kinect stuff. Rare will be there. You’ll have the Forza team talking about the work that they’re doing. You’ll have third parties there. I think it’s really going to be a great show, because the creators are the ones that make these platforms sing.”

Beyond the press showcase, the team will also feature playable demos at the Microsoft booth on the Gamescom show floor. “It’s really going to be the first time at scale consumers are gonna get their hands on Xbox One,” Spencer said. “It’s going to be tremendous. Our studios and third party studios are hard at work filling out the booth. Biggest booth we’ve ever had.”

In addition to the unannounced exclusive, Microsoft’s Gamescom lineup includes the following titles:

Forza Motorsport 5
Dead Rising 3
Ryse: Son of Rome
Project Spark
Killer Instinct
Zoo Tycoon

Gamescom will run from August 21-25 in Cologne, Germany.

[M99]

This week's Call of Duty: Ghosts event wasn't just the first opportunity to see the game's much-anticipated multiplayer content, it was also my first chance to see how the new Xbox One controller performs when playing a competitive first-person shooter. While the controller wasn't paired with the Xbox One console — rather, PCs configured to next-gen specs — the demos highlighted the new changes to the ergonomics, thumbsticks, d-pad, and trigger design.

Upon starting the first match, the upgrades made to the thumbsticks were immediately apparent. Microsoft has made the overall surface area of the thumbpads slightly smaller, but implemented texturized edges and a concave surface. The thumbsticks also have a wider range of motion, which affords increased precision. The minimum draw before an action is reflected on-screen is much smaller on the Xbox One than Xbox 360. Moving either stick slightly off center resulted in small movement or aim adjustments on-screen. Naturally, raising the in-game sensitivity made those small gestures result in a much larger on-screen action. Overall, players will seemingly have a much greater level of control and personalization when using the next-gen gamepad.

The other big change is the d-pad, which has long been a headache for shooter and fighting game fans on the Xbox 360. This week's demo solidified that the era of the Xbox 360's loose, imprecise disc-based d-pad will soon be a distant memory. The 4-way button is incredibly responsive, with a distinctive click when calling in a killstreak. Most importantly, the design is easy to differentiate on-the-fly, so you can make quick, decisive taps without error.

After finding a lack of impulse trigger-enabled titles at E3, I had hoped that this week's event would finally showcase how the haptic feedback works with a shooter title. Unfortunately, my dreams were quickly dashed. While Microsoft has promises that the Xbox One controller will be capable of weapon-specific vibration effects, the rumble motors in the triggers were disabled.

All the same, I was able to get a feel for the new trigger and shoulder button designs, which have now taken on rounded, tapering edges. The shoulders and triggers now seamlessly blend with the base of the controller, which in effect, makes them feel like a natural extension of your fingers as you play. The design feels so good and intuitive, in fact, that I struggled to notice much else about them.

The Xbox One controller builds upon the Xbox 360's legacy as a proficient shooter gamepad. All of the ergonomic features you love are there with significant refinements and increased precision. With Sony making FPS-centric improvements for the DualShock 4, it'll be interesting to see which controller reigns supreme when the systems ship later this year.

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