As we celebrate the birthday of the Xbox One in South Africa next month, it’s only fair that we recap on the console’s past year on the market and take a look at what is to come in the current months ahead.
The Xbox One released in SA on September 23rd, 2014, at the recommended retail price of R6, 299.00 for the standalone bundle, and R7, 999.00 for the Kinect Bundle.
The console launched with every game that released prior to the console’s launch in SA, except physical copies of Titanfall.
The Xbox One then received a price drop in July of this year, lowering the standard price of the 500 GB console by R800, to R5, 499.00. This was down from its original release RRP of R6299.00
Since the console’s release, no media apps, DVR, or music apps have been supported, and have yet to be up to now.
The console still remains a gaming console with so much untapped potential in our local market.
Saying that, the games are great, and the Games with Gold incentives are improving as the months go by.
The Best Xbox One Exclusives to date
Rare Replay – 85/100
30 games for $30, what more could you want? Rare Replay celebrates Rare Ltd’s 30 years as a developer and showcases the best Rare titles in one massive package.
From Banjo-Kazooie, all the way back to Jetpac. As dated as it feels, it’s a trip down memory lane.
Halo: The Master Chief Collection – 85/100
To say that Halo is a great FPS is an understatement. The franchise is a pinnacle of great story telling and high-octane gunfights.
The Master Chief Collection featured all of Halo titles, right up to Halo 4, excluding Halo: Reach, but including Halo 3: ODST. With over 100 multiplayer maps, the game is a great collection of even better games.
Ori and the Blind Forest – 88/100
Taking indie gaming to a whole new level, no, actually smashing indie right out of the park.
Ori and the Blind Forest is a light-hearted adventure that sees you venture across a forest to recover the elements, ultimately restoring the once vibrant forest, now dark and dead, back to its former self.
Forza Horizon 2 – 86/100
After the success of the original Horizon, Forza Horizon 2 takes the player to Europe where the weather is always on the change, the cars are exotic and the race festival is as busy as ever.
Forza Horizon 2 has received multiple DLC packs sine launch, and is still the most played racer on the Xbox One today.
Sunset Overdrive – 81/100
One of the best games of 2014 took open world mechanics, crazy guns and mutated creatures, slapped it in a blender, and made one awesome Xbox One game.
Insomniac Games took everything they perfected on weapons in the Ratchet and Clank series, and put it to work in a new game. The results were superb.
Windows 10
The Xbox One still has far to go to make its mark, with Microsoft launching Windows 10 and merging the Xbox One and the PC, we will see some great things in the near-future.
From cross-platform titles like Gigantic and Fable Legends to a brand new UI releasing later this year, the Xbox One will be faster and feature a ton of new streaming abilities and quick navigation options.
Microsoft plans to merge the PC market and the console market with their cross-platform play on their exclusive titles, but will it work for other titles, and what other plans do they have in store for the PC gamer?
Backward Compatibility
At E3 this year Microsoft announced that the Xbox One will get the ability to play Xbox 360 titles.
This has been rolled out to preview members and it’s the engine that runs the latest Rare Replay titles.
With this in mind, Microsoft plans to bring over 100 Xbox 360 titles to the Xbox One come November when they roll out the full program to all users.
This opens doors to new offerings, when purchasing sequels to games that had their original release on Xbox 360.
We have seen this happening with Just Cause 3 and Fallout 4, offering Just Cause 2 and Fallout 3, respectively, on Xbox 360 as incentive to your purchase.
Upcoming Xbox One Titles
Scalebound
This upcoming dragon companion title looks rather epic, as your team up with man’s scaliest friend to take down giant creatures, and then move onto 4 player co-op when you feel like being a badass dragon master with friends.
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Lara Croft is back and on the search for the immortality.
In a race against Trinity, a well-funded organization after the same thing, Lara must use every skill she’s learnt from the past as well as mastering a few new ones in order to survive the dangers that follow.
Fable Legends
This free-to-play RPG is a reboot of the Fable series and makes it a fully co-op experience.
Playing as either the hero or the villain, you will fight through waves of enemies, solve puzzles and eventually overcome the evil menace, or wreak havoc and try prevent the heroes from ever succeeding.
Halo 5: Guardians
The much anticipated sequel in the Halo series will see the Master Chief try and restore peace as the colony worlds are unexpectedly attacked.
Spartan Locke is tasked in tracking down Master Chief, an apparent adversary of mankind, or is he?
Forza Motorsport 6
Racing has never been better, and Forza Motorsport 6 will take it to a whole new level with brand new tracks, cars and a revamped engine that will produce state of the art visuals and physics-based weather effects.
Crackdown 3
Featuring fully-destructible environments in multiplayer, and a 4-player co-op campaign, Crackdown 3 is going to explosive.
New weapons, vehicles and new ways to explore your surroundings is Crackdown 3’s main focus.
Quantum Break
Developed by Remedy Entertainment, Quantum Break merges third-person cover-based shooting and time manipulation mechanics.
The game will utilize time to assist in overcoming foes and even solve puzzles as you evade Monarch Solutions, the corporation responsible for the failed time experiment that caused all the trouble in the first place
Have you had Xbox One since launch? How do you think it has grown over the past year? Let us know in the comments and forum.
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