Xbox One - The Controller

The Xbox 360 controller is commonly regarded as the greatest controller ever made, but with the introduction of the Xbox One, Microsoft is changing the formula with a new design and over 40 enhancements. But the problem here is whether the company managed to improve upon perfection?

One of the most notable changes are for those made to the ergonomics. The handles appear to be shorter than the Xbox 360 version, but in reality the middles surface area is just slightly wider to accommodate the new control layout and the flat batter pack. The analog sticks are slightly smaller in design and feature textured rides to support a wider range of motion. The shoulder buttons and triggers have been rounded off to blend in with the controller but reports have stated that they feel great.

Microsoft hasn't just changed the exterior of the device. The triggers now have "magnetic" sensors, which Microsoft claim offers greater precision. The buttons also have a distinctive mechanical click, which some may find preferable to a traditional membrane configuration. Critics of the Xbox 360 controller's imprecise disk-shaped d-pad will be pleased to find it has been replaced with a four-way design, which, once again, Microsoft has promised will deliver more precise controls.

The company offered tech demos of the controller's new "impulse triggers," which place small rumble motors within the triggers themselves. The company allowed attendees to try out a series of brief demos of the feedback motors, ranging from the type of sensations associated with a helicopter taking off or driving a car. The Xbox One will be capable of using both the impulse triggers and motors built into the handles to capture the rumble of an engine in your palms and bumps in the road in your fingertips. The company also discussed how the motors could create feedback unique to certain weapon types or even indicate the location of incoming hits from enemies in each corner. How developers will implement the feature into games remains to be seen but the premise is good.

Obviously the overall design and functions could be changed ahead of release as the controller shown was only a prototype. We didn’t get any information on the change data port added to the space where the chat cable used to exist or what the purpose of the replaced start and select buttons would be. It’s heavily expected that at least one of these will follow the ‘share button’ implemented on Sony’s PS4 controller. The Xbox Home button remains in place and is expected to function a lot like the Xbox 360 version.

I’m quite excited about the prospect of the Xbox One’s controller, which is something I was surprised about, considering I love the current model.

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Xbox One - The Games

At last week’s Microsoft event -- in which the Xbox One was revealed -- the company noted that Xbox One will be receiving 15 exclusive games in its first year on the market. Notably, eight of those games are promised to be from all-new franchises. One of which -- Quantum Break -- has already been shown.

Microsoft's focus on exclusive games with the Xbox One is likely a direct response to criticism levelled at the company during the Xbox 360 era, in which it had few exclusive games, although those exclusives -- like Halo, Gears of War and Fable -- were huge hits. This puts Microsoft into direct competition with Sony, which has traditionally more heavily emphasised its exclusive content.

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Xbox One - The Hardware Specifications

Last week, at Microsoft's low-key Xbox One architecture and hardware panel, company technical executives elaborated and expanded on how the new console will interact with and be improved by cloud computing.

The Xbox One is a powerful piece of hardware with 8GB RAM, 64-bit processors and a hefty amount of additional humph. As usual the questions have cropped up on how the console will be able to hanle itself as time passes and the hardware ages. As Xbox One Director of development Boyd Multerer pointed out, "You'll still have a limited number of transistors in your house; in your box."

But the Xbox One is built to communicate with servers via a cloud system to increase the computational potential of the system. Boyd continued "[a developer] can start doing things like shifting latency insensitive things to the cloud. You may have a limited number of transistors in your house, but you have an unlimited number of transistors in the cloud"

Obviously as bandwidth improves, there is potential for actual game computations to be off-loaded to servers in the cloud, essentially allowing the Xbox One to become more powerful over time as more and more transistors are connected to Microsoft's cloud infrastructure.

Microsoft are going for an "ever-evolving, powerful world [in the cloud] that [they] can tap into."

"This is not going to be as static a console as we've seen in the past," Multerer enthused.

Given that the Xbox One doesn't require an online connection – as per previous rumours - it's unknown specifically how game developers will be able to take advantage of cloud computation. One potential possibility is that only gamers connected to the Internet with a fast enough connection will be able to take advantage of the computational power of servers in the cloud and experience an increasingly powerful-feeling of the new console.

With E3 only a few weeks away we can expect to hear even more on this new innovation and they ways Microsoft plan to edge Sony in the market.

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