REVIEW: Xbox One - Good for online gamers but not for offline.

A look back at Microsoft's Xbox One, one of the eight generation consoles. 

It is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third console in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It was first released in North America, parts of Europe, Australia, and South America in November 2013, and in Japan, China, and other European countries in September 2014. Microsoft market it as an "All-in-One Console".

When I first got my hands on it, I was absolutely excited about it not only as an upgrade but the things you can do that the Xbox 360 can't. 

Let's start with the pros first, the system has a powerful AMD APU (Jaguar series) that graphics are amazing in all models and performance is smooth but the later models improve. The console offers a lot of online options and content for the online gaming community such as streaming, chat, text, adding friends and posting on social media. All models (except for All-Digital Edtion) can play CDs, DVDs, and Blu-rays while S and X models can play Ultra HD Blu-ray Discs. 

Backward Compatibility with Xbox 360 and Orignal Xbox, achieving through emulation. Before this, Microsoft stated it was impossible for backward computability because if different architectures. There are 575 games made backward compatible out of 2094 that are released for Xbox 360 and there are currently 41 on this list out of 1000 released for the Xbox. All Original Xbox games run at four times the original resolution on Xbox One and Xbox One S consoles (up to 960p), and sixteen times on Xbox One X (up to 1,920p)

All models can dramatically enhance all of the backward compatible games. 


After Microsoft announced that it would allow gamers to post mostly any picture and content whatever they want, the Xbox One online community has become toxic acting more like Twitter/Facebook rather than gaming. Even Steam's community is better and more relevant. 

Now for the Cons, Xbox One is also known for lacking exclusive titles, one of the main selling points for gaming systems. Kwon for Halo and Gears of War but they've been lacking on exclusivity. In 2016, Microsoft began to make future Xbox One-exclusive first-party releases simultaneously available on Windows 10 PCs, with digital cross-buy support via Microsoft Store under the branding Xbox Play Anywhere this has been criticized for a number of reasons. Disc based games are not eligible for Xbox Play Anywhere. Microsoft has also controversially canceled many exclusive almost-finished games for some reason. Microsoft has also the worst customer support and lacks promises (Like claiming Xbox One X /Project Scarlett was going to be a new console but it was a new model instead.)

Updates can be good, but Xbox One and its games constantly update itself whenever you turn around. They are forced and eats heavy on your data, Halo 5's update is over 100 GB of data. In PS4 it's optional to play the game without updating it, but online features are disabled, for Xbox One it's forced unless you deleted and reinstalled it. 

The system may be great for online gamers but for offline gamers, not so much. Especially for rural America, Europe, and Australia. Her'es a list of features that requires an internet connection despite you can do these things on Xbox 360. Asterisk* means it can be done offline on PS4

- View and change your profile picture
- Changing wallpapers*
- Creating profiles*
- Moving/Transfering profiles*
- To install the original Xbox and Xbox 360 games to play offline. (You can play offline for a couple of days until you get an Xbox Live error) 
- To install the Blu-ray App, to watch your Blu-ray/DVDs.*
- To install the CD player app to play your favorite CDs
- To install the media player app to play your media on your USB
- To install the music background app to listen to music background while playing a game. (The app sucks anyway and doesn't properly work)
- To earn achievements (except for Xbox 360 games) *
- Activate your console for the very first time (like a virgin) 
- To look at your avatars. (New avatars sucks with cringe appearance) 

You can even repair your system without it deactivating itself. PS4 doesn't have this problem.

Xbox One is a soulless piece of hardware that's clucky and cheesy for the core online gamers, but for offline gamers, It would be worthless in the next 15-years especially the "All-Digital Edtion." I recommend getting a PS4 or a Nintendo Switch. it's not worth it. 


I give the Xbox One a 4.5 out of 10 🌗