I have been using the Xbox One continually for a week now and have a couple of extra comments to make.
First up COD Ghosts is the best COD ever – Better than Black Ops 2. Infinity Ward seems to me to do it better than Treyarch. Yes and I am continuing to like the Xbox One. It is faster, more responsive, and now that I know my way around, easy to use. After I finish the Campaign on COD Ghosts, I am getting BF4.
However, there are a couple of things to consider before you sell or trade your Xbox 360.
No 1.
Xbox One, unlike the 360, is not a media extender, and, according to Microsoft, won’t be. http://au.ign.com/articles/2013/08/05/ask-microsoft-anything-about-xbox-one
I have TV tuner cards in 2 of my computers and use Windows Media Centre to record TV programs. I then stream the programs that are saved on my computer to my TV via the 360. Still pictures stored on the computer can also be viewed on the TV using the same “media extender” function.
No 2.
The Xbox One will not see attached USB drives. Unlike the 360, you can’t plug in a USB thumb drive containing pictures or video to play/view them on the TV
No 3.
You need a 360 to listen to any voice messages that friends (who still have a 360) send you.
No 4.
See No 1. – X Box One does not currently have any support for DLNA. DLNA is an industry standard that is similar to Media Extender referred to in No1. It allows content such as video and pictures to be streamed over a network. For example, my TV and PS3 both have DLNA so that these devices can see pictures and video stored on my computer for display on the TV.
No 5.
I have mentioned in the previous post that all games whether purchased on line or by disk have to be loaded onto the hard drive. A check of my hard drive (via “My Games and Apps” / navigate to game / menu button) shows that COD Ghosts takes up 39.9GB of space on the hard drive. Therefore the 500GB drive will probably be able to save only about 10 to 12 games before the disk is full. (Update – I have just watched the Teardown of the X Box One on TWIT.TV http://twit.tv/show/twit-live-specials/174 and there is about 391.9GB available for storage so it will probably be 9 games or less).
NOTES
No 1. And No 4.
Despite what some individuals have said (without explanation) on the internet, I have not been able to find any way for the Xbox one to see shared files on computers on the network.
There are reports that Xbox One (and PS4) will be getting DLNA support but I have not been able to find any actual statement from Microsoft.
You can work around this to some extent by saving things to SkyDrive and accessing this content using the SkyDrive app on the Xbox One. Even if you have installed the SkyDrive app on your computer so that you can drag and drop stuff to SkyDrive, this still involves extra steps. More importantly, there are problems with large files and upload/download times. The drag and drop has a 300MB file limit with 2GB for the upload app. Then there are the limits on SkyDrive storage. The normal free limit is 7GB. (Although I have the original 25GB plus 20GB from Office 365).
In addition, the Xbox One SkyDrive App does not see .wtv video files. (.wtv is the format used by MS Windows Media Centre for recorded video). Also a typical one hour recording would exceed the 2GB upload limit to SkyDrive.
Therefore to make the SkyDrive option work, you would have to go through the time consuming process of using Windows Movie Maker to break the video into sub 2GB lots and render in WMV format then upload to SkyDrive.
The SkyDrive work around is OK for still pictures but not acceptable with video for the reasons mentioned above. Moreover, when I tried it with a small 40MB .wmv file, the play back stopped (buffered) 3 times – not all that good for such a small file.
I found this on MS Support http://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-on-other-devices/windows/how-to-add-video – Not only does it apply to the 360 but also it seems to only make video on the computer available when you click the Win 8 / 8.1 Xbox Video Tile. This seems pointless in that that you can already access the video on the computer. The video does not show on the video app on the console. I also note that again it does nothing with the .wtv format.
No. 2 and 3
Access to external drives is said to be coming soon. I hope that voice message is also coming soon. It will be interesting to see if an ability to play video on an attached drive becomes available and if the .wtv format will work.
No 5
Eventually, the 500GB hard drive will fill up and you will have to delete older games. If you buy on line, it is hoped that you will be able to re-download deleted games (like a Kindle) but I would definitely check this first. On the other hand if you have purchased a disk, it will be easy to re-install, although, as I stated in my previous post, this takes time.
I think I will stick with disks, mainly as I like to trade in old games.
I have read that when the Xbox One acquires the ability to read attached USB drives, you will be able to store games on external storage.
CONCLUSION
It is hoped that DLNA, the ability to access attached USB drives and voice messages are all added soon.
Until these issues are addressed satisfactorily, hold onto your 360 or delay the upgrade to Xbox One.
These are the reasons why I have kept my 360.
FINAL NOTE – NAT – STRICT
When I was playing around in the console, I noticed that the NAT (Network Address Translation”) setting had been altered to “Strict”. “Strict” just about breaks everything for on line play. I am sure that it was “Open” when I set it up.
There are any number of fixes on line but this is what worked for me to get it back to “Open”.
I turned off the Xbox One console and disconnected the Ethernet cable from the console. (I have a wired connection.) I then went to my router and in the router settings allocated a fixed or static ip. It is called “Address Reservation” under “LAN Set Up” on my Netgear router. After a couple of minutes I turned the console back on and NAT was back to “open”.
Hi,
Thinking of buying the Xbox One
Have any of your concerns been addressed ?
Cheers
Greg