Why xbox one is good

While it lacks the more recent hardware improvements offered by the Xbox One S and the Xbox One X such as support for 4K and HDR , the original Xbox One is still a powerful machine that can play every single game on the system, and plenty more from the previous two gens thanks to support for Backwards Compatibility emulation.

Kinect 2. With the introduction of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate - an ever-evolving subscription service - you'll now have access to a huge library of games, including ALL of Microsoft's current and upcoming first-party exclusives. While Microsoft has definitely lost the battle of the exclusives in this generation, it's already preparing for the next with a newly bolstered line-up of in-house studios.

So even if you're investing in an Xbox One now, you're getting a console that's slowly been re-evolved into a proper gaming system. So to get you ready for your next big gaming purchase, we've broken down everything that you need to know when buying an OG Xbox One.

From its hardware capabilities to the raft of current Xbox One games , T3 has you covered! In fact, it's a big, hulking brute of a machine that bears more than a passing resemblance to a Betamax video recorder circa It's a x 80 x mm slab weighing about 3.

Cast in 'Liquid Black', its top is split in half with a reflective surface on one side and a massive vent on the other. Incidentally, this is a console designed to sit flat underneath your television set, with its Kinect sensor staring grimly out at the contents of your living room. Plonk it on its side and Microsoft won't be held responsible for your discs getting scratched. The front-facing side has a disc slot — that will play Blu-ray discs, once the app is downloaded — a power stud, eject tab and a sync-tab for hooking up the one wireless controller the Xbox One comes packaged with.

It also has wireless networking capability through its It also makes barely a sound when you power it up. The Xbox One has been updated and adjusted many times in order to reaffirm its new focus on pure gaming. If all of this sounds intimidating, don't worry, setting this beast up is a doddle.

Kinect, the power cable and — if you fancy watching live television through the Xbox One - most set-top boxes all slot neatly into the back. Once you boot it up, the console will ask you if you already have a profile. If you do, you'll need to go online to load it up. If not — or if online is an anathema to you — you can create a new one from scratch. Online is easier, though. If you have a profile, you simply login with your password and instantly, your Achievements, save games, friend-lists and avatars are all ported across.

It doesn't wipe your Xbox gamertag — rather you now have gamertags on two platforms. It also activates your Xbox Live Gold Status, if you have it. You can allow the Kinect module to link your physical appearance if you're still using one with your profile and that way, whenever you sit down in front of the console, it'll say 'hi' and then log you in. If someone was already logged in, it gives you the option of switching profiles. It even notices if another player is handed the controller.

You can also 'hold' the side of the screen to minimize the screen streaming entertainment, surf channels using voice commands and even program Kinect to start up when you say 'Xbox on'. The New Xbox Experience, introduced at the tail end of , is the new way of using Xbox One and it's light years ahead of the Windows 8-based abomination early adopters had to endure for two years straight.

The NXE is all about dividing all your content into four key sections - Home, Community, OneGuide and Store - with each one flowing much like a social media feed. Think of it like a rolling homepage with all the important functions on each tab accessible quickly with the minimum of fuss.

Games now have their own homepages known as Game Hubs - from here you flit between captures screenshots or video, see your Achievements and more. So the more you and your friend's play, the more populated these Hubs become.

Players now have an increased friends cap as well — 1, friends — and can also follow other players, in much the same way that they would on Twitter. For those that love browsing digital titles, this clean and fresh UI is a godsend. The Xbox One UI has had a lot of changes over the years, but the current version is far more user-friendly than PS4's. Community is Xbox One's equivalent of content feeds you find below each game on your PS4's UI, but instead gathered into one place.

Still more surprising are the two big RPG developers on this list: inXile and Obsidian, two beloved studios with a long history of story-driven RPG games. Xbox has never really been a home to isometric RPGs or really roleplaying games in general JRPGs, for instance, have always been more dominant on Japanese consoles.

With this acquisition, Microsoft looks to change that entirely. And it makes sense given that these types games have long been PC-centric. There are other reasons to buy an Xbox One, of course, but these will largely be more subjective. Perhaps you like the gamepad better; others will prefer the PS4's DualShock controller. Perhaps your friends all play on Xbox Onethat's as good a reason perhaps the very best reason to buy the system. Microsoft has also been more willing to play nicely with others than Sony, jumping on Fortnite's cross-play bandwagon much earlier, for instance.

This may simply be due to the fact that Microsoft is way behind Sony in terms of unit sales, and it's easier to be a team player when you're not already winning and, on the flipside, easier to not be a team player when you have a major sales lead. That's not always possible, however, and for these reasons the Xbox One makes more sense than the PS4. Just remember: You can't play Bloodborne on Xbox One. For that, you'll need a PS4. This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here.

More From Forbes. Nov 11, , am EST. Nov 10, , pm EST. Nov 10, , am EST. Edit Story. Mar 5, , am EST. Credit: Microsoft. Credit: Platinum Games. Credit: Microsoft Studios. The Xbox One X is a great system. Microsoft feels your pain; they've recently started offering Xbox Play Anywhere for certain titles, which allows you to purchase a game digitally and use the same license for both your PC and your Xbox.

The service also allows you to save games to the cloud and pick them up right where you left off. Whether you're on the road with your laptop or sitting in your butt groove on the couch at home, you'll appreciate the flexibility the service gives you.

Xbox Game Preview allows gamers to try out games before their official release, and gives developers and publishers a chance to see their game out in the wild and receive feedback before they add in a final layer of polish. Some of the games are free to try, while others like the super-popular PUBG cost money, but paying usually guarantees you a copy of the full game upon release. Xbox One's Family Gameshare service allows players to designate one other Xbox Live account as their family member, which lets the two accounts pool their game collections.

Using this feature, families with more than one Xbox in the house can play the same digital copy of a game on two consoles concurrently. While this is great for parents who only want to buy one copy of a game for their kids, users have been known to stretch the concept of "fam," and there's nothing stopping you and your BFF from linking accounts to share games.

Microsoft was the first company to go all-in on online gaming. In , the company launched a new subscription service for the original Xbox called Xbox Live. The Sega Dreamcast and Sony PS2 also offered online play, but features were extremely limited, and not all of the hardware was internet-ready. Microsoft's early gamble on online gaming paid off, as all the most popular games today have a significant online component.

A recent independent study showed that Xbox Live is faster and more reliable than PSN, and that people find Microsoft's online service to be a more quality experience. It's also worth reminding everyone about the legendary PSN outage that lasted a ridiculously long 23 days, and that compromised the personal data of more than 77 million PSN subscribers. In addition to packing the Xbox One X full of advanced hardware, the Xbox team also thought it might be good to offer a super high-end controller.

It comes with interchangeable paddles and thumb sticks which vary in height , hair-trigger locks, and like all Xbox One controllers has completely customizable button mapping that can easily be changed in the Xbox settings. While some might think that no one would ever pay such a hefty price for a console controller, the original was apparently successful enough to warrant a sequel, which is in development. Modern gaming requirements have quickly overtaken the average built-in storage capacity in current-gen consoles.

Today, discs are little more than glorified download codes, and there's no way to play a game on an Xbox One or PS4 without fully installing it to your hard drive first. A new blockbuster release can easily take up 80 gigabytes of space, so the gigabyte hard drives of the base Xbox One and PS4 fill up pretty quickly. While the Xbox One X and PS4 Pro come with one terabyte hard drives, if you're planning to play more than 10 big-name games, you're going to need some extra storage.

While adding a bigger hard drive to the PS4 involves opening the console up and swapping the old one out, Microsoft went ahead and made storage upgrades easy for gamers.