Xbox One (general info and news thread)

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Re: Xbox One (general info and news thread)

Post by None »

ThaJim2 wrote:Strike Suit Zero: Director's Cut and Crimson Dragon will be the free gold games for the One in August.
FUCK YEAH! Strike Suit is cool if you're into that genre, but I've wanted to check out Crimson Dragon since launch (even though I know it'll disappoint me).

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Re: Xbox One (general info and news thread)

Post by Sigma »

EA have announced a new subscription service today that's exclusive to the Xbox One, called EA Access. For $4.99 a month or $29.99 a year you get access to older games from their catalogue of titles (although not that old as the 4 games initially included in the deal are Battlefield 4, Madden NFL 25, Peggle 2 and FIFA 14) as well as a 10% discount on newer EA games and content and access to game trials 5 days earlier than anywhere else.

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Re: Xbox One (general info and news thread)

Post by ThaJim2 »

^this is an awesome deal. I have not got an invite yet but will be all over it the second I get it.

I have looked at some of the tech and game sites and surprise anywhere from 40 to 80 percent of the gamers are bitching about this as some how the end of the world. Seriously worst people fucking ever are gamers.

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Re: Xbox One (general info and news thread)

Post by Sigma »

The potential negative is that it could make PS+ and Games With Gold worse. I doubt EA are going to put any of their games on those services now. Why would they, when they're charging an extra fee for a similar service of their own? If other publishers follow suit, it might ruin PS+ and GWG.

A lot of bitching on forums is from people without an Xbox One who are annoyed that they can't get in on this though, cos for 30 bucks a year it's a good deal.

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Re: Xbox One (general info and news thread)

Post by Sigma »

I just got an invite to try this, so I signed up for a year. It's £19.99 in the UK, which is not bad as I can download the full versions of Battlefield 4, FIFA 14 and Madden 25 (I'd already bought the others) and play them for a full year.

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Re: Xbox One (general info and news thread)

Post by Hush »

Insane deal if you already buy at least one of these franchises yearly.

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Re: Xbox One (general info and news thread)

Post by Sigma »

MS are releasing a TV tuner for the Xbox One.

It plugs in via a USB port and supports DVB-T, DVB-T2 and DVB-C standards. It allows you to pause live TV, although they haven't mentioned proper DVR functionality - hopefully that will come in time. It'll be available in October for £25 in the UK or 30 Euros in mainland Europe. There's no word on it being released outside of Europe yet.

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Re: Xbox One (general info and news thread)

Post by Hush »

^^^ cool

In the meantime, I've been using one of these:

http://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-HW-150 ... B00I2ZBD1U

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Re: Xbox One (general info and news thread)

Post by Sigma »

MS announced some new features for the Xbox One today: -

New friends tab - Some people in the preview program have this already (not me though). It adds a Friends tab to the dashboard along with Pins, Home and Store, enabling you to see more info about what your friends are up to, challenge them on leaderboards etc.

Snap Center - This sounds like they're making the snap functionality a bit more like the mini-guide on the 360.

Threaded messages - Instead of just sending individual messages back and forth, you'll now be able to see full conversations.

Media player - This is a big one for a lot of people. A media app is coming that allows you to play "dozens of file formats" including MPEG2 TS, MKV, GIF, AVI, DIVX etc. Initially it will only support locally connected storage via USB, but then they will extend it to support streaming content over a network.

Stream TV to SmartGlass - You can stream TV via the console to your phone or tablet, as well as pausing live TV, rewinding, changing channels etc.

Boot to TV - For those who want it, there will be a boot to TV option.

Live TV mini guide - A new mini guide shown at the bottom of the screen will display details about whatever you're currently watching, as well as allowing you to quickly change channels, see what's on other channels etc. without having to switch to the main OneGuide.

All in all, what they have planned for the next few months sounds really good.

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Re: Xbox One (general info and news thread)

Post by Sigma »

A video demo of the above: -


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Re: Xbox One (general info and news thread)

Post by ThaJim2 »

D4 is coming out tomorrow. Game looks very interesting so I am going to pick that up and get Dance Central Spotlight.

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Re: Xbox One (general info and news thread)

Post by Sigma »

The Plex app is out for the Xbox One now.

If you've got Kinect, try the demo for Fantasia: Music Evolved. It's not a game I'll buy (I would if I had kids, as kids will love it), but it was better than I thought it would be! The Kinect gestures actually work really well.

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Re: Xbox One (general info and news thread)

Post by Hush »

Sigma wrote:The Plex app is out for the Xbox One now.
Right now you have to have a Plex Plus pass to use it. Although since the update yesterday I can connect to my Plex server using the "Media Player Preview" app (connects to it via DLNA). I can see the artwork for the movies and use voice commands to navigate. I would still pay a few bucks for the proper Plex app though, once they release it to non-plus users.

Edit: On a side note I've decided to sell my PS4 and stick with XB1 this generation, at least for the foreseeable future.

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Re: Xbox One (general info and news thread)

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November update details: -


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Re: Xbox One (general info and news thread)

Post by Sigma »

In the US, MS are running a promotion in the run up to Christmas, so you'll be able to buy an Xbox One starting at $350. More info here: -

http://news.xbox.com/2014/10/xbox-one-special-savings" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I got one of the TV tuners I mentioned above. It's great for £25. You can pause/rewind/fast forward live TV, so you can pause TV, switch to playing a game, then go back to TV and unpause it. The buffer only lasts about 30 minutes though. Another thing you can do is stream live TV to any SmartGlass-enabled device and you can do that while someone is playing a game on the console. The person watching TV can access the OneGuide and change channels and stuff via their phone/tablet. If they brought out a twin tuner version and added proper DVR functionality for recording TV shows it would be perfect, but for £25 it's a neat little device.

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Re: Xbox One (general info and news thread)

Post by Hush »

Sigma wrote:In the US, MS are running a promotion in the run up to Christmas, so you'll be able to buy an Xbox One starting at $350. More info here: -

http://news.xbox.com/2014/10/xbox-one-special-savings" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I got one of the TV tuners I mentioned above. It's great for £25. You can pause/rewind/fast forward live TV, so you can pause TV, switch to playing a game, then go back to TV and unpause it. The buffer only lasts about 30 minutes though. Another thing you can do is stream live TV to any SmartGlass-enabled device and you can do that while someone is playing a game on the console. The person watching TV can access the OneGuide and change channels and stuff via their phone/tablet. If they brought out a twin tuner version and added proper DVR functionality for recording TV shows it would be perfect, but for £25 it's a neat little device.
But not coming out in the US (yet) :sad:

The PVR box I linked above works okay but is clunky (Kinect IR blaster doesn't always control is successfully) and requires me to have yet another device under the TV.

The sale they're running is cool. That White model w/ Sunset Overdrive looks spiffy.

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Re: Xbox One (general info and news thread)

Post by Sigma »

HBO GO is available on the Xbox One now, for you US folks.

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Re: Xbox One (general info and news thread)

Post by ThaJim2 »

Anyone using a usb harddrive? I need to buy one very soon as I had to delete games just to install GTA today and I still have Halo, Batman Lego and WWF to install.

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Re: Xbox One (general info and news thread)

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ThaJim2 wrote:Anyone using a usb harddrive? I need to buy one very soon as I had to delete games just to install GTA today and I still have Halo, Batman Lego and WWF to install.
Yeah, I am. I just bought a new one today actually.

I originally bought a Touro Mobile Pro 1TB drive, as it was 7,200 RPM and USB powered. The Xbox One only uses SATA-2 and a 5,400 RPM drive (as does the PS4), so transfer speeds aren't the best, so you get better loading times with a faster drive over USB 3.0. The difference isn't huge, but it is noticeable in some games.

Today I bought a 4TB Seagate Backup Plus Fast drive. Inside it is actually 2 x 2.5" drives in raid 0, so it's noticeably thicker than a regular 2.5" external, but it's really fast. The read/write speeds are about 230 MB/s and the difference in loading times was immediately noticeable, although again, it really depends on the game. It's powered by USB too. The only downside is the price.

The best example of a decrease in loading times is with COD: Ghosts. The initial loading time when you boot the game from the internal drive is about 22 seconds. From a decent external drive that drops to around 7 seconds. In some games though, there's not really any difference at all, or it might shave off a second or two which isn't really significant.

What I did is move all of my games and apps over to my external. That has 3 advantages. Faster loading times. I can take my hard drive to a friend's house, plug it into his Xbox One, sign into Live, and we can play any of my games. Also, if the console dies and gets replaced, I get an Xbox One Slim later on, or I need to do a factory reset for some reason, I won't have to re-download/reinstall anything.

Anyway, my advice would be..... If you don't care about portability and you don't care about having to plug the drive into a wall socket, go for a 3.5" drive and get the highest capacity you can afford. If you want a USB powered drive that's more portable, go for a 2.5", but bear in mind that most of them are 5,400 RPM and top out at 2TB. 5,400 RPM won't be any slower than the internal drive, but 7,200 is obviously faster. 7,200 RPM 2.5" drives top out at 1TB. Then there's the twin drive solutions like mine, but you'll pay twice as much for one of those as you would for a 3.5" drive with the same capacity. The only requirements are that the drive must be USB 3.0 (USB 1.1 and 2.0 are too slow) and be at least 256GB in size.

Setting it up is easy. You just plug it in and a notification pops up allowing you to set it up, or you can go into Settings - System - Manage storage. When you format the drive for use as Xbox One storage, it wipes it clean and it can only be used for that - not for storing movies and music as well, unfortunately. You can set the external hard drive as the default location for downloads/installs. You can also move or copy any item from one drive to another, although unfortunately there is no "move all" or "copy all" option yet.

One other advantage is that if you have a friend with an Xbox One and they've downloaded, say, COD: Advanced Warfare, which is around 50GB, you can plug your external into his console, copy the game to it, then when you plug the drive back into your console, if you buy the game it just unlocks what's already on the drive, so you wouldn't have to do a 50GB download. That's useful if you've got a slow connection or a cap. I copied all 6 of the EA Access games to a mate's external, as he only has download speeds of 3 Mbps and it would have taken him ages to download them all.

Damn, that's a long post, lol. It hope it covers all you need to know.

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Re: Xbox One (general info and news thread)

Post by Hush »

I have a 2TB Seagate w/ USB 3.0 lying around that I'll probably throw on there when I run out of room on the internal drive.

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Re: Xbox One (general info and news thread)

Post by Hush »

Are you guys going all digital this gen or sticking with physical media?

I'm planning on going digital when possible but I'll still buy physical media if it's a game I know I'll just play through once and sell/trade or if something is a really good deal.

I like the idea of having a library of digital games on the console that I can jump into at any time.

Currently I have Forza Horizon 2 and GTAV both digital as well as Powerstar Golf, D4 and Peggle 2.

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Re: Xbox One (general info and news thread)

Post by Sigma »

All the games I've bought are digital so far, but it's gonna be hard to keep that up thanks to the high price of digital games, particularly the third party ones. Sometimes the difference between the digital price and the disc price is £15-£20, which is shit when obviously you have fewer rights with digital downloads and can't sell, trade in, lend out.

I've been buying £50 Xbox Live cards when they're on offer. I've picked up a couple for £40 each, so at least that's 20% off, but I dunno if I'll stick with all digital going forward.

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Re: Xbox One (general info and news thread)

Post by Ramen »

Not sure about the UK but I was at the Microsoft store yesterday and they have a holiday promotion where if you purchase $75 you get $25 off.

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Re: Xbox One (general info and news thread)

Post by ThaJim2 »

Hush wrote:Are you guys going all digital this gen or sticking with physical media?

I'm planning on going digital when possible but I'll still buy physical media if it's a game I know I'll just play through once and sell/trade or if something is a really good deal.

I like the idea of having a library of digital games on the console that I can jump into at any time.

Currently I have Forza Horizon 2 and GTAV both digital as well as Powerstar Golf, D4 and Peggle 2.
I am mostly still buying disk except for games that are only digital like D4 and the ones I get with the EA thing. I just got that Best Buy gamer unlimited card so new games are 12 off plus 10 dollars in reward zone.

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Re: Xbox One (general info and news thread)

Post by Sigma »

Here's the Black Friday deals at Microsoft's online store: -

Xbox One consoles: -

Xbox One with Assassin's Creed Unity and Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag = $329
Xbox One with AC Unity, AC IV: BF and Kinect = $429

Xbox One games: -

COD: Ghosts = $14.99
Watch_Dogs = $24.99
AC: Black Flag = $24.99
Lego Marvel Super Heroes = $19.99
Sunset Overdrive = $39.99
Forza Horizon 2 = $29.99
Kinect Sports Rivals = $29.99
Ryse: Son of Rome = $29.99
Dead Rising 3 = $29.99
Tomb Raider DE = $19.99
Murdered: Soul Suspect= $24.99
The Evil Within = $24.99
Thief = $19.99
Lego Movie = $19.99
Wolfenstein = $24.99
Sniper Elite = $19.99
Diablo 3 = $39.99
Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor = $39.99
Duck Dynasty = $24.99
Metro Redux = $24.99

All of the individual games on sales are on disc, not digital downloads.

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Re: Xbox One (general info and news thread)

Post by ThaJim2 »

It looks like Best Buy has the best overall game deals. Might be different for places that have Frys and Microcenter. MS Store though is the only one that has Sunset Overdrive on sale. Also might be the only one that has Duck Dynasty on sale because I am sure that is what everyone here is dying to get. If you need an extra controller Best Buy, Target, and Walmart all will have them at 40 bucks.

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Re: Xbox One (general info and news thread)

Post by Ramen »

Can you guys look out for deals on the armed forces controller.

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Re: Xbox One (general info and news thread)

Post by ThaJim2 »

^Best Buy has all xbox one and PS4 controllers for 39.99 so that would include the Black one, COD one, Midnight Blue (I think its what its called and the one I am going to pick up), and the Armed forces Controller. I know other stores will have Controllers on sale but don't know if its only the black one or if they include the other ones.

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Re: Xbox One (general info and news thread)

Post by alpha »

Is there a better deal than new egg selling the ac bundle for $330?

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Re: Xbox One (general info and news thread)

Post by ThaJim2 »

Target has the AC bundle for 330 plus a 50 dollar Target GC
If you have Meijer out there they too have 330 plus 50 Mejier GC
Walmart has a Halo Bundle that is guaranteed in stock between 6-7pm for 329 plus 30 dollar GC. In Store only though.
Walmart will have the AC bundle for 330 but no GC.
Best Buy has the AC bundle for 330 but no GC.

Rumor is that MS store will have AC bundle for 330 (fact) but you also get a choice of an additional game (rumor).

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