Back in February, Sony fired the first salvo in the next generation console war. On May 21st, Microsoft unveiled its response to the still mysterious PS4, the Xbox One. While the name is a bit head-scratching (I'll get to it later), Microsoft earned some credit for showing the actual hardware at the announcement. Microsoft's multimedia shock and awe campaign, culminating with a Steven Speilberg produced Halo series, spoke volumes about their confidence in the machine and its experience. Even better, we found out that the console isn't an always online box. But will the new Xbox live up to expectations? Here are 5 reasons not to buy into the Xbox One hype...
5. Multimedia Overload
Like the PS4, Xbox One is focusing heavily on media, although its approach is the polar opposite of Sony's console. While the PS4 focused on sharing what you're doing while gaming, Xbox One is all about bringing tons of media to you - movies, TV, music, and more. In fact, Microsoft spent half their press conference explaining how this would make the Xbox One an all-in-one media center. For a hardcore gamer, this is a bit concerning - features like NFL streaming and being able to watch movies while surfing the internet aren't what we care about. It's obvious that Xbox One is designed more as a piece of consumer electronics than as a pure gaming machine, especially with its TV tuning abilities. This makes sense from a financial point of view - the hardware is expensive and to recoup their costs, they need to get as many people to buy it, even if they aren't gamers. But to hardcore gamers, whove seen Microsoft drift further and further into the casual game space, this is a giant red flag that could tip some over to the PS4 camp.