10 Awesome Xbox One Reveals

You can’t ever talk about a new Xbox without talking about a new Call of Duty. Call of Duty: Ghosts looks awesome for so many reasons. The brand new graphics engine is amazing. The new integration of dogs as more than just a kill-streak but an actual squad member is a great idea. The new movement system including slides and leans will give you an incredible amount of control over your character. Dynamic maps will allow you to cause landslides and cave-ins and building implosions to keep your opponents down. It’s certainly going to be one of the killer apps that sells the system, especially with Xbox’s ongoing DLC exclusivity contract with Activision.

The new Kinect will be more sensitive than ever before. It will be able to sense speed, motion, impact, depth, and even intricate finger movements. All of this adds up to an amazing new motion controller that will revolutionize the way we play motion games. However, that’s not the most exciting thing about the new Kinect. The most exciting thing is that every single Xbox owner will now own a 1080p camera. This will open the floodgates to a whole slew of new user created content from people who wouldn’t have had the cash to drop on a high def camera otherwise. Gameplay, review shows, unboxings, strategy videos, and more will all be available due to the fact that the Xbox One is giving everyone a studio grade camera.

EA brought some of its biggest franchises to the Xbox One event, and it did not go unnoticed. FIFA, Madden, NBA, and UFC are all going to end up on the Xbox One, with tons of new features that will take advantage of the Xbox One’s new tech. The fact that you can get up to the minute stats on your fantasy leagues is impressive, but even more impressive is the ability for these stats to update in real time. Perhaps the same can be done for EA’s sports franchises.

Now it’s time to get a little bit technical on you. There are two things about the Xbox One’s specs that make us excited. First of all, they are ludicrously powerful. The sheer amount of ram and processing power that the Xbox One is capable of is impressive, even though Microsoft didn’t go into the type of RAM the system uses, or the system’s GPU processing power. That being said, the second thing that excites us about the Xbox One’s specs, is the fact that they don’t seem all that different from the PS4’s. This should help to streamline game development in a way that will reduce game cost and increase game quality.

This is something that competitive gamers should be very interested in. Say you want to find a match in the new Call of Duty or Street Fighter, but the fish just aren’t biting today. No problem, the Xbox One can run matchmaking services in the background. So just switch on your favorite episode of My Little Pony  Band of Brothers, and wait for your match to be ready. Or heck, you can actually play an entirely different game while waiting for a match. Make some progress in the new Skyrim or Silent Hill while you wait for a Madden game. Button mash through Dynasty Warriors while a Halo free for all is loading. There won’t be any more “waiting for opponents” screens in this next generation.

Interactive TV seems to be a big thing in this new console generation. Not only will the Xbox console control your basic TV itself, but it will also feature original programming exclusively for Xbox users. Of course, on first glance you’d think that these shows are really just throwaway series that couldn’t compare to actual network TV, but you would be wrong. The great Stephen Spielberg is actually stepping up to produce a Halo series for the Xbox One. They slipped in a little bit about the Halo series being a “premium” series, so you might have to pay just to get the chance to see it. Hopefully soon we will hear more about the Xbox One's pricing plans, including the price for premium TV series.

The dynamic achievements announcement was actually somewhat unexpected. At this point, achievements and trophies are just pre-programmed goals. Either you complete them or you don’t, earning Gamerscore in the process. However, the Xbox One will apparently allow achievements to become something more. What does this mean? We aren’t entirely sure. Microsoft alluded to the ability to create your own achievements or to dynamically generate them as the game is played. We will have to wait until E3 to hear more about this new system feature.

Sure, it’s something that the PS3 is going as well, but simultaneous app running is something that consoles have needed for a while, so it’s a good that it’s coming to both consoles. Specifically, it’s nice that you get to actually snap applications to different windows. This allows you to do so many different things, like watch TV while you grind out levels in an RPG, open a FAQ in a sidebar, chat with other players who are playing the game, and more.

What the heck is this game about? Does that little girl in the trailer have the ability to control space and time? Can she input memories into the adults around her? Are the live action cut-scenes part of the game or was this just a cinematic teaser? Is this the grand resurgence of full-motion video gaming? We want to know! The game is being made by the same people who made Alan Wake, which was an honest to goodness work of gaming art, so we can’t wait to hear more about the game at E3.

Thank the gaming gods above, the Xbox finally has a D-Pad that doesn’t suck! Sure, there are a lot of other really cool features of the new controller. Force feedback triggers and analog sticks are pretty cool. Controller tracking via the new Kinect is also pretty cool. However, gamers have been asking for a new D-Pad on the Xbox controller for a while and now we finally got it. No more wobbly disks. No more thumb cramps when reaching for it. Just straight-forward, easy, digital inputs.