Microsoft made a few blunders with Xbox One to say the least. However, the console had some neat extras and features that the Xbox hardcore genuinely appreciated. Features that would make their merry way to Xbox Series S and Series X.
There were also a few that didn’t receive the love to convince Microsoft to bring them to their latest machines. Here are three Xbox One features we would have loved back in the Xbox Series eh, series. And two that we are glad stayed in the past.
Local Game Streaming
While Xbox furnishes gamers with remote play options via Game Pass on smartphones and tablets, you can’t stream your own Xbox Series X titles from your console to your PC over the network. Using the Companion App, users can effectively use their PC or laptops as a portable second screen for their Xbox Many (plural). Seeing as this was not only an option on Xbox One but a promoted feature of Microsoft’s cross-platform ecosystem approach, this feature’s omission is strange.
The service has its limitations. A wired connection is required for an almost lag-free 1080p60 so its best performance is limited to desktops. But it still would have been cool to be able to have access to your Xbox Series X|S in a different room.
Storing Current Gen. Titles
Xbox One users could use their generic USB drives to free up some internal disk space. This feature was especially useful when games started to reach 100GB, especially with OG Xbox One’s 500GD HDD
Xbox Series X|S can move Xbox One games to a USB drive but it can’t do so with games that are Optimised for Series X|S. While we buy the excuse that the speedy solid state drive is integral to the performance of Xbox Series X|S games, it’s still a shame that players will only be able to keep a small few 9th gen. titles at hand to play at any one time.
Whilst there is an option for boosting the integral storage through NVMe cards, these are pricey. Starting at €249/£219, Seagate’s solution is the only fully compatible solution so far. Hopefully, a little competition will drive prices down.
Optical Out
The TOSlink optical audio standard may have been made obsolete by later HDMI but many homes still have soundbars and surround systems that won’t accept a raw bitstream over HDMI. This means that quite a few fancy-but-aging systems will be using compressed channels for their 5.1 or 7.1 audio feeds.
Those who use high-end headphones with their own DACs will miss the optical out even more. Common HDACs produced up until as recently as 2016 won’t take a 4K signal via HDMI. No signal, no sound. If you are affected by this, Turtle Beach have a useful info page.
Dishonourable Mention – The Television Stuff
Introduced correctly as part of a healthy game-centred console experience, OneGuide could have turned out so differently…
The ability to pass your cable/satellite box through your Xbox One and avail of TV guide functionality was useful. However, OneGuide also played a bit part in Xbox One’s initial bad press, poor fan reaction and ultimate defeat.
With hindsight, it looks like Xbox abandoned the ‘living-room’ strategy as an overcorrection following the overwhelmingly negative reaction. In particular, reaction to THAT E3 2013 presentation would influence Xbox strategy for years to come.
Microsoft seemed the think that TV functionality itself was the problem and it was de-emphasised, then forgotten. In reality, it was their pre-release overemphasis on Xbox One’s non-gaming functionality that upset gamers. If the TV stuff was an afterthought in keynotes otherwise filled with gaming content, a few of us may have been missing OneGuide and the HDMI input.
But as it happened, OneGuide only serves as a reminder of Xbox’s fumbling and failure.
Dishonourable Mention – Kinect
Like Xbox One’s telly functionality, Kinect serves a symbol of Xbox One’s unfocused, out-of-touch conception. Unlike Xbox One’s TV stuff, there is no alternative timeline where Xbox get it right and Kinect serves gamers well. It was just terrible. The fad of convulsing at your display like you are being controlled by a sneezing puppeteer was already dead by 2010; trying to sell a €500 console on it in 2013 was madness.
Even if it worked well, there were zero interesting experiences to be had. Inputs, even when working properly, were far too imprecise to ever make a full game of.
Voice command was also a barely functional mess. I couldn’t help but laugh at people request their Xbox Many (plural) to record stuff or quit a game many times to no avail. The saddest part is PlayStation 4 had a richer and far more reliable voice command suite that could just use your headset mic.
And Xbox had the neck to ask $/€100 more than PS4 to foist this useless monstrosity in front of your TV.
