Microsoft's Xbox One will dominate your living room entertainment by accessing your cable, on-demand video apps and other media, the company teased Friday.
The above new video shows a demonstration of how the Xbox One will integrate with those services, and how it will allow users to switch quickly between them with voice commands. Yusuf Mehdi, Xbox's chief marketing and strategy officer, and Marc Whitten, Xbox Live's vice president, walk us through the experience in the 12-minute video, which was recorded Nov. 1, The demo featured "live code" from the Xbox One.
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Microsoft previously detailed the Xbox One's relationship with the cable box and other applications, but this is the first time users get a big picture of what that looks like.
The Xbox One's home screen will look familiar to Windows 8 users, as it features a tile-structure similar to Windows' new Metro layout. Compared to the Xbox 360 layout, it has much less stuff on the home screen. One of the biggest features is pins, which allow users to attach as many as 25 of their most-used apps, games, television shows, websites or albums to the home screen. After users customize theirs pins and their Xbox One dashboards, it stays associated with their Xbox Live accounts, meaning it will appear on any Xbox their signed in to.
Once users' accounts are tied to an Xbox and it recognizes their faces, the Xbox One will log them in as soon as they appear in the Kinect's camera. The Kinect can detect who is holding the controller and giving voice commands, and then it gives them options associated with their profile.
For those with cable subscriptions, the Xbox One can hook to their cable box with its HDMI-in port and stream live TV through the console. The Xbox One will then supersede the cable box's built-in guide with its own "OneGuide". Users can then mark their favorite channels in the OneGuide, and also get a live view of what is playing on every channel, with thumbnails and program descriptions.
The OneGuide isn't just for cable, however. Several other entertainment apps interface with it. Users can view their Hulu Plus queue along with their live programming.
"We understand that everyone is getting bombarded with entertainment from everywhere," Xbox director of product management Albert Penello told Mashable. "We want to help organize that."
The OneGuide can also interface with SkyDrive, Microsoft's cloud storage service. Users can bring their own pictures and video in from SkyDrive and easily find them on the guide.
The Xbox One is getting many of the same entertainment apps found on Xbox 360. On its Nov. 22 launch in North America, users can download Amazon Instant Video, Hulu Plus, Machinima, Netflix, Twitch, ESPN, Redbox Instant, TED, Univision, Verizon FiOS TV, VUDU and the NFL App. HBO Go is listed, but it is marked as "coming soon".
During live TV, or any other activity, users can receive a game invite or a Skype call and connect with their friends. The Xbox One Skype app uses the Kinect's camera, which has received a huge resolution update to 1080p, and the Kinect can digitally zoom to follow the subjects if they move around the frame.
Almost every app can be brought into the Xbox One's multitasking mode, called Snap. This allows gamers to watch TV while they play a game, check their friends list while watching TV, or bring up Internet Explorer. When apps are snapped, they appear in a vertical bar on the right side of the screen.
The Xbox One will be out in North America on Nov. 22. Players can get a glimpse of the dashboard starting Friday at Microsoft's 75 stores around the country.
You can follow Mashable for more coverage as we lead up to the launch.
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Ending years of rumors and speculation, Microsoft unveiled the Xbox One, the successor to the Xbox 360, on May 21, 2013. The price will be revealed closer to launch (expected holiday), but the new console has superior processing power, comes bundled with the Kinect sensor and has new abilities for watching TV and movies more conveniently.
The Xbox One console comes bundled with the Kinect and a controller.
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The Kinect is said to be much improved, capable of detecting subtler body movements, such as rotating joints.
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Image: Mashable, Chelsea Stark