UPDATED 06:44 EDT / MAY 22 2013

NEWS

Gamers Mock Xbox One For Its TV Features

Barely a few hours after Microsoft’s new Xbox One console was launched in the US, and already the online community is poking fun at the electronics giant for its focus on the console’s new TV features at the expense of what many really wanted to see – the games.

In case you missed the launch event yesterday, Microsoft spent an awfully long time emphasizing the console’s new voice and gesture controls, which it says will allow users to interact with the device in a more natural way. Worse than this however, was the way the electronics giant’s executives seemed to fall over each other in their determination to remind us that the Xbox One now integrates TV for the first time, allowing users to switch from gaming to television at the flick of a button.

Microsoft also talked up its collaboration with Steven Spielberg to create a live-action TV show of its hit shoot ’em up game Halo. This heavy dependence on the Xbox One’s TV features, combined with the relative paucity of information on the actual gaming experience, inspired one YouTube user to splice together every single mention of the words “TV” and “television” during the event into a two-minute video clip, which has caused much amusement within the online community.

Darkbeatdk’s hilarious parody clip seems to have struck a chord with a large number of Xbox fans who were perhaps hoping for something more than what looks more like a feature-heavy set-top box than an actual games machine.

One user, Shaggie TV, seemed to sum up the general mood with his comment:

“Am I the only person who doesn’t want to talk to his TV?”.

Another poster, Bembu 17, underscored the point that most gamers don’t even like watching TV:

“Holy shit. I’m trying my best to see it from a positive perspective, regular tv is dying out and everyone is moving to the internet to watch their fav shows, but why the fuck is a game console so worried about that shit? I want to play videogames, not watch tv. I want to be a fat-lazy-american-video-game-p­layer,”

Meanwhile, PUNKem 733 adds:

“I don’t think anyone is excited about a $400 cable box that requires a second cable box to act as a cable box.”

That’s not to say that Microsoft ignored the gaming side of things altogether – at the end of the clip you’ll see how its execs were wetting themselves over “Call of Duty” just as much as the TV capabilities. Nevertheless the clip does some up Microsoft’s vision – as SiliconANGLE’s contributing editor John Casaretto explains on today’s NewsDesk, it no longer wants the Xbox to be seen as simply just a “games machine”, but rather an all-in-one home entertainment system that appeals to a much wider audience than just gamers alone.

“It’s a brilliant concept, they’ve pulled out all the plugs,” explains Casaretto. “It may well bring in people if there’s enough buzz around it.”

For now we’ll just have to wait and see if that’s the case, but considering Microsoft’s abysmal failure when it comes to ‘innovation’ in recent years, I don’t think too many people would be surprised if this too, turns out to be flop.


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