If you heard the commotion this morning when Microsoft began cancelling one-on-one E3 appointments, we now have an answer as to exactly why the company did so. On their official website, Xbox Wire, the team took the time to detail how Kinect, game licensing, and the online connection will work with the Xbox One. It’s predominantly good news with the majority of terrible rumors finally being debunked. It’s about time too, the silence was certainly not helping them generate buzz.
Some of the bigger highlights are included below, if you’re interested in hearing more details, you should head on over the Xbox Wire.
- Access your entire games library from any Xbox One—no discs required: After signing in and installing, you can play any of your games from any Xbox One because a digital copy of your game is stored on your console and in the cloud. So, for example, while you are logged in at your friend’s house, you can play your games.
- Buy the way you want—disc or digital—on the same day: You’ll be able to buy disc-based games at traditional retailers or online through Xbox Live, on day of release.
- Superior wireless performance and coverage throughout the home: Xbox One is equipped with a gigabit Ethernet port and 802.11n wireless. With 802.11n, Xbox One can use the 5GHz wireless band which eliminates considerable interference from other devices in the home, such as cordless phones, Bluetooth devices and microwaves. Xbox One uses two wireless antennas, versus one in Xbox 360. This provides dramatically better coverage and sustained performance, which means faster internet speeds in more areas of your home.
- While a persistent connection is not required, Xbox One is designed to verify if system, application or game updates are needed and to see if you have acquired new games, or resold, traded in, or given your game to a friend. Games that are designed to take advantage of the cloud may require a connection.
- Share access to your games with everyone inside your home: Your friends and family, your guests and acquaintances get unlimited access to all of your games. Anyone can play your games on your console–regardless of whether you are logged in or their relationship to you.
- Give your family access to your entire games library anytime, anywhere: Xbox One will enable new forms of access for families. Up to ten members of your family can log in and play from your shared games library on any Xbox One. Just like today, a family member can play your copy of Forza Motorsport at a friend’s house. Only now, they will see not just Forza, but all of your shared games. You can always play your games, and any one of your family members can be playing from your shared library at a given time.
- Trade-in and resell your disc-based games: Today, some gamers choose to sell their old disc-based games back for cash and credit. We designed Xbox One so game publishers can enable you to trade in your games at participating retailers. Microsoft does not charge a platform fee to retailers, publishers, or consumers for enabling transfer of these games.
- Give your games to friends: Xbox One is designed so game publishers can enable you to give your disc-based games to your friends. There are no fees charged as part of these transfers. There are two requirements: you can only give them to people who have been on your friends list for at least 30 days and each game can only be given once.
- With Xbox One you can game offline for up to 24 hours on your primary console, or one hour if you are logged on to a separate console accessing your library. Offline gaming is not possible after these prescribed times until you re-establish a connection, but you can still watch live TV and enjoy Blu-ray and DVD movies.
They concluded their announcement saying, ” Loaning or renting games won’t be available at launch, but we are exploring the possibilities with our partners.” It’s certainly an exciting time to be an Xbox owner. Now that all of our worries are out of the way, E3 is right around the corner and Microsoft can truly win us over.
via XboxWire