New Delhi: Microsoft unveiled the Xbox One, an entertainment console that wants to be the one system households will need for games, television, movies, sports and other entertainment. It will go on sale later this year, for an undisclosed price.
The Xbox One took four years to develop and will be the launchpad for a "Halo" live-action video series produced by Steven Spielberg. Microsoft hopes its third-generation Xbox console will attract video game fans who are increasingly sampling games on mobile devices, while also becoming a hub for living room entertainment.
Here are the top 10 features of Microsoft's Xbox One:
1. TV on Xbox One: It lets users navigate and watch live TV from their cable, telco or satellite set-top box through the Xbox One. Microsoft is committed to bringing live TV through various solutions to all the markets where Xbox One will be available.
2. Snap: Users will be able to do two things at once on a big screen in their home. They can use Snap to jump into a multiplayer battle while watching their favourite movie, talk with friends on Skype while watching live TV.
3. Trending: Stay on top of what is hot on TV by discovering the entertainment that is popular among your friends, and see what is trending within the Xbox community.
4. Controller: The new controller's layout is mostly unchanged, but the bulky battery bump is gone from the back. The smoother Xbox One controller boasts a new directional pad and vibrating trigger buttons. The triggers pulsated in tandem with such imagery as a character's heart beating and a car revving up during a demo with a prototype controller.
5. Games: The company said there will be more than 15 games available exclusively on the Xbox One in its first year, eight of them new franchises. In recent years, the Xbox has been the exclusive home to such popular gaming franchises as sci-fi shooter "Halo" and alien shoot-'em-up "Gears of War."
6. Kinect: The new version of the Xbox's camera-based Kinect system comes with better motion and voice detection, including the ability to recognise faces, tell if you're smiling or talking and gauge your heart rate.
7. Game DVR: A dedicated Game DVR captures and accesses your magic moments, all saved to the cloud.
8. Xbox SmartGlass: Xbox SmartGlass is natively part of the Xbox One platform, built in from the beginning with the ability to render content directly onto your device. With Xbox SmartGlass, more devices can now connect at one time for multiplayer and shared entertainment.
9. OneGuide: It lets you find your favourite entertainment easily, searching by network or name, all with the sound of your voice and presented in a tailored program guide.
10. Home: You can turn on your entertainment system with two words, "Xbox On," and a custom-tailored Home dashboard welcomes you with your favorite games, TV and entertainment.
The Xbox One unveiling follows Nintendo's launch of the Wii U in November and Sony Corp.'s tease in February of the upcoming PlayStation 4. Each of the new consoles has shifted away from simply serving as gaming machines, as they incorporate streaming media apps and social networking features.
The original Xbox debuted in 2001, and its high-definition successor premiered in 2005. The Xbox represents a small fraction of Microsoft's overall revenue, but it is an important consumer-facing business for Microsoft and offers a way to direct traffic to other Microsoft-owned services, including Skype.
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