Xbox One vs. PlayStation 4: Living room vs. the Cloud

Saint_Dee

Saint_Dee

The Phantom Poet
But if we look at that long-term vision, new Xbox and PlayStation fans could find themselves in very different places down the road. Microsoft wants its box to be the center of your living room in every way, while Sony is promising a future where you theoretically might not even need a powerful box in your home.

Here's 10 minutes in the life of a future PlayStation 4 owner, should Sony's vision pan out: press a button to instantly wake your console, sign into your account, and go channel surfing through a catalogue of games. Not browsing pictures and descriptions of games, mind you, but clicking through channel after TV channel filled with video footage, both live and pre-recorded, of your friends actually playing. When you hit upon a game you like, you press another button to start playing it instantly too: Sony promises to let you play games as they download, and stream others outright to the game console.

Then, say you need to get up and walk somewhere. With many games, you'll be able to take it right with you, continuing your progress on a PlayStation Vita handheld as you walk around the house, or more likely, continue to play (or at least watch others play) from an internet-connected tablet or smartphone wherever you go. While the box itself will be a requirement in the short term (while Sony figures streaming out) future PlayStations could theoretically just be any controller and screen connected to the cloud.

In Microsoft's vision, by contrast, that future Xbox owner will have a rather different experience. Microsoft wants its new Xbox One to erase the boundary between set-top box and TV, to become the one device in your living room. You'll simply say "Xbox On" to instantly turn on your entire immersive living room entertainment system. JUST SAY "XBOX ON" TO FIRE UP YOUR LIVING ROOM The voice command will fire up the console, your receiver, and your TV simultaneously, and the new Kinect camera will recognize your body and face, automatically signing you into your profile and preparing you to consume several kinds of content at a moment's notice. Where you'll be channel surfing games on the PlayStation 4, the Xbox One will let you literally channel surf live TV, assuming the infrared holds up. You'll issue rapid-fire voice commands to switch between games, web, apps, and television, or use the multitasking chops of the underlying Windows 8 operating system to take a Skype voice call and play your game simultaneously. And when it is time to game, you won't have to swap discs: you'll have already stored them on the Xbox One's hard drive.

While the power of the cloud will also contribute to the games that Microsoft's envisioning, allowing you to play downloadable titles as they install, the future goal is rather that computational power gets piped into your console to make those games more immersive. After all, in Microsoft's visions, all roads lead to your living room hub. All information goes there. And should Microsoft's Illumiroom dreams come true, that might be a fantastic decision, because the Xbox One could use that information to turn your living room into the long-awaited holodeck.
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Source: The Verge
 
I'll be fair since I'm not so clued up on consoles, the biggest thing here (for both Sony and MS) is PR and Marketing.

Sony's slightly enigmatic (where's the actual console:p?) focused heavily on the gaming vs. MS's detailed reveal which gave a wider scope of focus (the living room idea). Now I'm not saying either approach was the best or the worst, just different and engaging for its target audience.

The biggest thing that maybe resonating with the gamers at the moment, is that Sony's reveal catered more for its core consumers (the gamers) whereas MS's reveal focused on an expansion beyond gaming (the gamers may have felt left out). To be honest I believe the gamers will still get the attention at E3, which is something MS mentioned before the actual reveal, stating their reveal would be split in two parts. So in that regard, I'd say the gamers couldn't really have been surprised by the reveal.

Where I feel MS may be warrant of some criticism though, is how they handled questions posed to them (questions that were raised probably as a result of their future vision for their console). There have been quite a few conflicting reports on the online requirement, most of these conflicting reports quoting one or another exec from MS (which might make one think the execs aren't on the same page). Then there's been some confusion raised by the ideology they've taken on the lending/borrowing of games, and their take on the 2nd hand market.

I'm pretty sure each console will be a great piece of tech (and from a technical viewpoint, they're definitely awesome), and the different reveals may have appealed to some more than others, but in terms of PR and marketing, MS could've responded better to questions that were raised in response to their ambitious vision of the Xbox One.
 
Great read but I just don't see myself fitting into either future yet. Looks like we are letting tech define our lives instead of using tech to enhance our lives
 
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