Mom's Minute

Microsoft reveals the next Xbox on May 21, 2013

During the Microsoft reveal of the next Xbox video game console, a surprise may not have been how the system looked -- but exactly what it is called.  Don Mattrick, President of Microsoft Interactive Entertainment, introduced the next Xbox, as "Xbox One."  One may think of the President's airplane, Airforce One, when this name was announced -- Or even "The One" from the Matrix movies.  However, based on the information revealed about the next Xbox, one may also conclude that the "One", may originate from the system being projected to be "All in One", for your entertainment experiences.

Xbox One is not to be confused with Airforce One

Xbox One is also not named for "The One" from Matrix

Don Mattrick kicked off the conference by reviewing how the Xbox 360 has enriched the lives of many for the past eight years since its launch.  He stated; however, the Xbox One will offer more benefits, with the goal of making your television set ultimately more  "intelligent."

The Xbox One video game system 

Another goal of the Xbox One is to offer a system that is seemingly always ready, and connected.  Yusuf Mehdi of Microsoft,  demonstrated how manual logging onto the Xbox will become a thing of the past.  By a simple voice command to the Xbox One, the system will not only come on and land at your favorite video viewing area, but you can also toggle back and forth from television shows, music, games and vice versa -- all with your voice command.  Of course, the voice command feature is currently available on the Xbox 360, using the Kinect; however, the new system will include new options as well, such as "Trending", which lets you know what your friends are watching.  As an added feature,  you can use your hand motions to maneuver where you would like the Xbox One to take you -- viewing-wise.

Xbox One Controller

 The highlight of Microsoft's Xbox One reveal, in my opinion, came at the end of the conference when Eric Herishberg of Activision introduced and showed an extended world premiere of the highly anticipated video game, Call of Duty Ghosts, which included a visual comparison between the graphics from the previous Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 -- to the pending release of Call of Duty Ghosts video game.  

Most of the presentations alluded to E3 scheduled for  June, 2013, so it remains to be seen if this conference was a "watered down" version of what will be presented at that time.

Even though, in my opinion, the Xbox One is not revolutionary to look at, and may even look to be a step backwards in its appearance and name, at least, unlike Sony,  Microsoft was upfront with how the new system looked.  Pictures of the actual Xbox One were shown at the conference, in contrast to Sony's plan and insistence to keep the reveal of the PS4 a secret, except for the short, blurry picture of the system that was recently leaked.

Hopefully, Microsoft has more to reveal during E3 about the Xbox One that may excite you more so than what was shown on May 21, 2013.  Maybe (fingers crossed), they gave the somewhat drab main course of Xbox One today, with possibly the delicious dessert to be served at E3 in June 2013.