Published September 30, 2017
As a gamer who's had the X-Box one off and on since it's release year, I have to say the system has been very underwhelming for the most part, especially after Microsoft's valiant efforts to restore faith in the brand after the infamous "red-ring of death" situation that plagued the 360. After what has been marked as the worst console debut in E3 history, the X-Box One has been the underdog in this console generation from the get-go. One only has to look at monthly release charts of the X-Box One versus the PlayStation 4 and you can see that Sony has put forth a far superior effort in securing titles exclusive to their console, including many of the indie developers that the 360 did such a great job of welcoming. So what the hell went wrong at Microsoft? I can't answer that exactly, I'm certain the company would do its best to conceal any inner turmoil so there's surely some stuff going on behind the scenes. I can, however, tell you why I'm personally disappointed with Microsoft's offering this generation and I'm sure many fellow gamers can agree on at least some of these points.
Error Messages
The error screens are totally ambiguous and do nothing to inform you of why you game or app won't load. They typically say something along the lines of "something didn't load properly" or "oops, something went wrong," providing absolutely no indication of what the actual issue is. Other times your game will just close and you're suddenly booted back to the home screen without any error message at all. This was not an issue with the 360 as all error messages came with codes you could easily look up and at least get an idea of what the issue might be.
System Resources
The One introduced an OS that would allow for multi-tasking, allowing you to have several games or apps running simultaneously with the ability to switch between them. However, if you have a habit of forgetting to close out games or apps that you're not using, they will eventually build up and it will become too much for the system to process. Games won't boot up until you perform a hard-reset, done by holding in the power button until it shuts off. This isn't very well documented and there's no indicator of how much memory is being used, at the very least a memory allocation meter or something would have been nice. It's one of those Microsoft has been implementing in their Windows platform for years, and it would have made perfect sense as the difference between consoles and personal computers becomes fuzzier as time progresses.
Half-Baked Games
This console generation has definitely lowered the bar for what is deemed as a product that is ready to be released to the paying masses. I've never attempted to play so many games that would either refuse to load or contain terribly frustrating bugs that make them near impossible to enjoy. Sometimes these are patched, but there are instances where the developers are clearly aware of the issues though nothing is ever resolved. It's a sad state of affairs and honestly this current console generation has left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth because of this. I'm not boycotting gaming altogether or anything, but I absolutely refuse to pay suggested retail prices on games anymore and will only purchase them while on sale. Call me a cheapskate if you wish, but I've been burned one time too many.
The Kinect
I'm not one of the many people out there that feel as if the Kinect was a complete waste. On the contrary, I thought the device had some cool tech and when developers knew how to utilize it the Kinect could make for some fun, unique gaming experiences. The device even saw a pretty decent number of titles for the X-Box 360 despite the general negative reception. However, Microsoft bundling the Kinect with the original X-Box One systems at launch was a big mistake. There were very few titles released for it and it Microsoft would end up abandoning the peripheral by the time the X-Box One S model released (you have to buy an adapter just to hook the thing up!). The Kinect added about $100 to the initial price tag and most certainly was one of several reasons why gamers would pick up the PlayStation 4 instead. Not to mention that the system functions for the Kinect takes up valuable resources that likely could be used for better overall game/system performance. If Microsoft would have went all in with it and provided more software support for the peripheral it possibly could have worked out, but it never should have been mandatory for early adopters to have one.
Micro-Transactions Galore
While micro-transactions was a creation that spawned during the previous console generation, it was a small number of titles that actually employed this tactic when you look at the overall releases in that period. This generation of games has almost turned micro-transactions into a mandatory thing, at least when it comes to the big budget games. It reeks of greediness and it's one of those modern staples of gaming I want absolutely nothing to do with. I play several games that offer micro-transactions, and while I do ignore them for the most part, I still find it annoying that even games like Battlefield and Call of Duty have adopted this into their games after they already charge their customers over $100 to get the full game ($60 for the core game, plus their "season pass" which usually retails for a cool $50). The fact that these companies feel people should dump more money into their games is just ludicrous.
Backwards Compatible...Sorta
While I do give Microsoft credit for even doing this at all, the backward compatibility thing would be infinitely sweeter if it was full-fledged rather than a handful of cherry picked titles. While I realize this would be a monumental task for Microsoft to undertake, I guarantee it would pay off in the end. I'd rather they just focused on adding backwards compatibility for more 360 games rather than the original Xbox. While it is neat that they will add support for a select few old X-Box games, I honestly doubt many gamers will actually make all that much use out of it. It was neat on the 360 as well, but I can say I rarely played old X-Box games on it nor did I ever really see anybody on my friends list play them. If they were able to add even some kind of basic achievement support for these games it would help to justify adding them to the library and would certainly help provide gamers with a little more incentive to play those old X-Box titles. Sony has been able to offer trophy support on select PlayStation 2 titles that were re-released in HD, so it's certainly not impossible to do. Again, I enjoy the backward compatibility support overall but there is room for improvement.
Closing
Let me just say in closing that I don't hate the X-Box One, I've had some good times with the system and still have a few gaming buddies to play with on there from time to time, but I don't think I'm alone when I say it's both disappointing and frustrating to see Microsoft make so many blunders and provide limp competition against Sony thus far. Hopefully they are able to push some units with the X-Box One X (ugh...that name) and attract developers to release some great software in the future, maybe even some of them exclusives! It's been irritating knowing that pretty much every third-party game with any graphical fidelity looks/plays just a bit better on Sony's system.
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