5 ms·

I'd like to be impressed, but it's really hard. I have friends that work at Microsoft and have worked on various bits of this platform. I know personally the in

by geuis 13y ago

I'd like to be impressed, but it's really hard. I have friends that work at Microsoft and have worked on various bits of this platform. I know personally the incredible amount of hard work that gets put into this product. This presentation just feels... empty. It's largely middle-aged men (and a woman who worked at tv companies) dryly reciting a badly written script with significant intentional pauses intended for applause after non-funny jokes. The opening demo was kind of interesting. It's hard to tell if the tv/kinnect interactivity was staged or not, but it seems real enough to be impressive. More of this please. Followed by a guy that no one knows or cares about, speaking at length the hardware, about how revolutionary the new product is. He doesn't actully say anything much about how the new system is built beyond "5 billion transistors and 8gb of RAM!", while briefly flashing some tech specs floating next to an amorphous blob of 3d Xbox parts. Then we get to see a non-MS exec from EA introduce a 2 minute interview with some sports guys.... SHOW THE DAMNED GAME!! Look, when you're showing off your product SHOW IT OFF. Don't put your fatty bag of mostly water in between the product and the people trying to learn about it. Then the stream died for me after the CBS/Time Warner lady started talking. I caught the end where guy #1 is talking about Stephen Spielberg and Halo, the it died again. For the HN audience, there's a ton of lessons to take from today. Talk about the product, don't get in the way, and make sure your tech supporting the launch works and is stable. Everything else will take care of itself.

criley 13y ago
Everything was stable, I streamed the entire event from Verge pre-show to the end screen without a single hiccup or drop. I also had far less criticism than you did for the presentation, I found it similar to what Sony and Nintendo do on stage and definitely par the course for a console release. I mean, think about it: Sony hasn't even shown off it's hardware yet, and they announced months ago. Now Sony is telling us they'll actually, you know, SHOW US the console in a few more weeks. What gives? At least Microsoft put the product there, front of stage, and (presumably) ran a few demos on it.
- geuis 13y ago
  Yeah I can't criticize too much on streaming, other than that it worked fine until half way through and then wouldn't reconnect after that. There's a lot of factors that can affect that. Considering it happened from both my phone over LTE and laptop via wifi at home, 2 data points can triangulate in a certain direction. Your bar is too low. Expect more from product releases. Was this launch better than the PS4 launch? Absolutely. Was it great, not at all. I will never introduce a product that doesn't do what its being sold to do until I can stand in front of 100 people and show it working.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
untog 13y ago
Honestly? I don't really know why anyone bothers to do launch events like this any more. Post a bunch of images, videos and some bullet points about the product somewhere. Done.
- commandar 13y ago
  Well, the Sony PS4 event was actually fairly well done, especially in comparison. There was a lot of noise about them holding off on showing the actual box, but they talked extensively about games, about the things you could do with the console like screen sharing with friends, and about what the new hardware meant for developers and the kinds of doors it'd open for games. It certainly wasn't without flaw, but it did get me somewhat excited about a console I didn't really have any interest in before the event.
  - untog 13y ago
    What part of that did the Xbox miss? I only sporadically followed it, but it seemed to have plenty of detail on what you can do with it. Light on games perhaps, but it sounds like that's MS's direction with this generation.
  - geuis 13y ago
    Go back and re-watch the PS4 talk. It was mostly empty and mostly vapid. There were less details given than the Xbox presentation. They showed a controller and that vibrator-looking glowing thing you see in porn. The most interesting bit technology-wise was the old man head. I'll admit that was very cool but I wanted more info.
    - commandar 13y ago
      The screen streaming and sharing is a huge deal, IMO. The integration of the OnLive-like Gaikai service is also big. I just saw a lot more to be excited about. And while they definitely spent time on the typical shooters and racers, they made a point of spending time on games more off the beaten path, as well.
  - 13y ago
loganfrederick 13y ago
Microsoft said ahead of time that all software-related discussion would be saved for E3. This was a features and hardware-only event. http://www.polygon.com/2013/5/20/4347614/microsoft-reveals-its-two-part-console-reveal-for-the-next-xbox http://www.polygon.com/2013/5/20/4347614/microsoft-reveals-i...
- geuis 13y ago
  They should have said that at the beginning of the presentation, not announced before the event and/or somewhere else. That being said, there was almost no hardware talk today. I know there's some good hardware and engineering in that black slanty box. That's all I've heard hinted about for months, about how impressed we'd be with the hardware, etc. Next to nothing was said about it.
  - warfangle 13y ago
    But it has eight gee-bees!

by geuis 13y ago

criley 13y ago

Everything was stable, I streamed the entire event from Verge pre-show to the end screen without a single hiccup or drop. I also had far less criticism than you did for the presentation, I found it similar to what Sony and Nintendo do on stage and definitely par the course for a console release. I mean, think about it: Sony hasn't even shown off it's hardware yet, and they announced months ago. Now Sony is telling us they'll actually, you know, SHOW US the console in a few more weeks. What gives? At least Microsoft put the product there, front of stage, and (presumably) ran a few demos on it.

geuis 13y ago
Yeah I can't criticize too much on streaming, other than that it worked fine until half way through and then wouldn't reconnect after that. There's a lot of factors that can affect that. Considering it happened from both my phone over LTE and laptop via wifi at home, 2 data points can triangulate in a certain direction. Your bar is too low. Expect more from product releases. Was this launch better than the PS4 launch? Absolutely. Was it great, not at all. I will never introduce a product that doesn't do what its being sold to do until I can stand in front of 100 people and show it working.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

untog 13y ago

Honestly? I don't really know why anyone bothers to do launch events like this any more. Post a bunch of images, videos and some bullet points about the product somewhere. Done.

commandar 13y ago
Well, the Sony PS4 event was actually fairly well done, especially in comparison. There was a lot of noise about them holding off on showing the actual box, but they talked extensively about games, about the things you could do with the console like screen sharing with friends, and about what the new hardware meant for developers and the kinds of doors it'd open for games. It certainly wasn't without flaw, but it did get me somewhat excited about a console I didn't really have any interest in before the event.
- untog 13y ago
  What part of that did the Xbox miss? I only sporadically followed it, but it seemed to have plenty of detail on what you can do with it. Light on games perhaps, but it sounds like that's MS's direction with this generation.
- geuis 13y ago
  Go back and re-watch the PS4 talk. It was mostly empty and mostly vapid. There were less details given than the Xbox presentation. They showed a controller and that vibrator-looking glowing thing you see in porn. The most interesting bit technology-wise was the old man head. I'll admit that was very cool but I wanted more info.
  - commandar 13y ago
    The screen streaming and sharing is a huge deal, IMO. The integration of the OnLive-like Gaikai service is also big. I just saw a lot more to be excited about. And while they definitely spent time on the typical shooters and racers, they made a point of spending time on games more off the beaten path, as well.
- 13y ago

loganfrederick 13y ago

Microsoft said ahead of time that all software-related discussion would be saved for E3. This was a features and hardware-only event. http://www.polygon.com/2013/5/20/4347614/microsoft-reveals-its-two-part-console-reveal-for-the-next-xbox http://www.polygon.com/2013/5/20/4347614/microsoft-reveals-i...

geuis 13y ago
They should have said that at the beginning of the presentation, not announced before the event and/or somewhere else. That being said, there was almost no hardware talk today. I know there's some good hardware and engineering in that black slanty box. That's all I've heard hinted about for months, about how impressed we'd be with the hardware, etc. Next to nothing was said about it.
- warfangle 13y ago
  But it has eight gee-bees!