My journey with Xbox

Let me get this out of the way first, I was always a fan of Xbox, mostly because of the multimedia capabilities. Xbox was always geared towards the living room and integrating the entire family as opposed to gaming and everything else is secondary. That being said, when I got the Xbox 360 (XB360) it was from the spoils of waiting in line to buy a PS3, selling it and then using my profits to buy an XB360 along with the HD-DVD drive that was available at the time.

This was a year after the XB360 was originally released and as a result the platform had matured in regards to content and software. So, today faced with the opportunity to own an Xbox One (XBOne) at launch was a very exciting prospect for me. I was never a huge gamer but like most other teenagers or young adults I spent quality time playing several games on consoles and PC. As I have grown older, so have my tastes and attention to details become pronounced. After the new consoles launch dates and capabilities were announced I had decided to wait a few months at minimum before even considering purchasing one, if I ever did.

I started to hear more details and performed my own research about the capabilities of the XBOne. The Kinect was an obvious first plus for me as I had actually figured out in the past that someone was going to ditch the physical controller soon after Nintendo came out with the Wii and I was not surprised when Microsoft announced the Kinect for XB360. One of my mottos is that I rarely buy any technology that is first generation, so technically, I am living up to my motto by getting the XBOne with Kinect 2.0.

          The second plus, which is what I think made me finally say that I had to have one at launch was the HDMI pass through technology that’s included. I was very surprised by this feature and the more I thought about it, the more I loved it. Being able to not only watch TV through XBOne but have picture in picture, able to fully control your entire Home theater/gaming setup via the XBOne built in IR blaster and let’s not forget the ability to actually control everything without a controller via Kinect.
           My experiences so far has prompted me to honor the XBOne with my first post of 2014. Happy New Year to everyone by the way. I will be posting several articles, follow ups and how to’s in the near future. I will say this, from my experiences, the XBOne will be a welcome addition to any family and not just the gamer at home.