Microsoft described the new Xbox One as “a new vision for the future comes to life”. I’ve assembled many speeches around this theme over the years, never for a games console.
Then again, there has never been a console as over-engineered as Xbox One. You operate it using a voice recognition system devised by Mircosoft’s top aural engineers. You can scan menus using a new sign language developed by Microsoft’s ergonomic technicians.
Microsoft is the sort of company that probably hires TV ethnographers and viewing psychologists. In the wildly chaotic living room of the Watsons, though, the will of dad still prospers. Without control of the “remote”, order does not exist. With Xbox One the TV watching quacks have won the design war. The patriarchy has been deposed as we move into the new era of Microsoftocracy.
Well Microsoft, my vision of your future is a group of wildly gesticulating children and screeching voices aimed at the beautiful black box that can switch between CBeebies and CBBC in one barked order from a five year old.
Worryingly, particularly for the middle aged grumpy gamer, is that Microsoft’s user experience experts have, in their words “refreshed” the “class-leading” Xbox controller with more than “40 technical and design innovations”. I don’t want the controller to be “refreshed”. I’m used to it. It’s perfect in every way. I spend more time using the old unrefreshed controller than I do driving my car. We’ve been on many adventures together and I don’t want to trade it in for an upgraded and refreshed version. Microsoft should hire some political philosophers alongside the audience ethnographers. Edmund Burke could have told them that “change always brings certain loss and only possible gain”.
Yesterday’s global screencast of the launch event carried it’s own pre-launch hashtag: #xboxreveal. One thing that was not revealed was the price of the new system. I’m pretty sure that we’ll all want one but can we all afford it? The company has spent a lot of time bringing people closer together with the integration of Skype and improvements to the use of Xbox live for multi-player online gaming. It looks impressive and I certainly want to play with one as quickly as I can.
But the price of the “liquid black” console will be the real game changer. Microsoft has sheepishly admitted to Wired that games discs will have to be installed onto the hard drive. This strongly suggests they will create a fee regime for second hand disc purchasers. If true, it will significantly reduce games ownership in my constituency and I’m sure will create a consumer resistance to the new device that Microsoft’s team of market researchers may have underestimated.
We are told to expect more news about the repertoire of available games during the E3 conference next month. Yesterday’s list of games was limited, only using the unsurprising Call of Duty franchise to showcase the new kit. Microsoft promise early and new franchises. They’re going to have to deliver on this if they want early sales.
Xbox One looks like the next generation of big telly gaming and viewing. Yet without knowing its’ price or games catalogue, how can one judge its’ value? It was conceived in a time of ever growing prosperity and no-one, not even the Microsoft pointy heads will know whether Xbox One will triumph in tough economic times.
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