That's neat. I'm sure people will get some use out of it, but... why doesn't this work through headsets? Why does it NEED Kinect to work?

If I were to guess, most of the voice processing is done in the Kinect unit itself and any transfer of work to the main Xbox unit would cause noticeable performance drop. Considering how the PS4 is already clearly superior in gaming horsepower, it would be too much for the marketing team to try to compensate.

We bough the Kinect late in the 360's life cycle, and we still regretted it. If the only incentive is TV and slightly-more-competent recording features, then no thanks. Keeping features locked behind it for the sake of making you want it is the exact thing that I stated that I hated earlier. It's marketing ploys like that that make me NOT want to ever buy it.

+1. To this day I must've used my 360 Kinect 3 or 4 times. Had it for more almost 2 years before buying myself the One. :(

Sorry to tell you, but the voice commands are what make the system what it is. I find myself yelling "Xbox, record that" at my PS4 all the damn time. Other frequent commands in my house:

Xbox Watch TV
Xbox Watch Comedy Central
Xbox Pause
Xbox Play
Xbox go to Netflix

As someone who doesn't watch TV (nor would purchase a gaming system for the purposes of watching TV), this doesn't sell me on the Kinect, really. Especially if this is what "makes the system", then it's a crappy system for a person who just wants to game.
As for yelling at the tv to record something, I honestly don't see how that's easier than clicking the Share button that your finger is beside, hitting square, then going back to what you were doing. But 90% of my gaming is done in total silence, so randomly blurting out commands is kind of jarring for me, and might not be for you.

And the new update added voice messaging! Now I can tell my TV to tell my friends hi for me!

That's neat. I'm sure people will get some use out of it, but... why doesn't this work through headsets? Why does it NEED Kinect to work?

Also, the kinect voice commands are so easy my technology impaired wife can use it. She actually gets mad when using the other TV that the PS4 is connected to because she can't just talk to it.

That's the thing. PS4 does have voice commands, and you don't even need the camera to use them. Having the headset plugged in is enough to grant you full access to all of the voice command features. And even then, I never use them. I just don't see how talking to the console is any better than touching a couple of buttons real quick. But again, since I don't use the console for TV, I usually never have the controller out of my hands...

The funny thing is that when I was first messing with the Xbone, I plugged in the headset and tried giving it commands to test them out; but nope, you NEEEEEED to have the Kinect, since it holds audio prompts hostage the way it used to do for video clips.

It's GREAT. It gives me those warm "I live in the future" fuzzies.

Buy the Kinect. You will not regret it.

We bough the Kinect late in the 360's life cycle, and we still regretted it. If the only incentive is TV and slightly-more-competent recording features, then no thanks. Keeping features locked behind it for the sake of making you want it is the exact thing that I stated that I hated earlier. It's marketing ploys like that that make me NOT want to ever buy it.

--

Also your xbox issues sound like you need a hard reboot, and if they persist, you may need a new xbox. Ain't none of that mess normal, yo.

I did a Hard reboot, but haven't actually gotten around to checking if it worked, but I'm hopeful.

Edit: I just tested it, and yep, the audio thing was fixed for now (and I was able to catch Destiny giving me a Canary even before I could hit the start button on the menu, lol).
Also took some earlier advice and pinned the DVR thing to record longer. Much less of a hassle than before, so that's something.

They really should have stuck to their guns on Kinect. Just the fact that not all Xbone users have a Kinect will stop deva from utilising it, making it useless (outside of talking to your tv sometimes), which will make less people want one. It's a vicious cycle, but MS have no one to blame but themselves.

It seems having a mandatory 10% performance hit for graphics was enough for people to want it to be optional. Frankly, it was the correct decision.

Also dedicated servers for party chat are rolling out with this update. That's been sorely needed for a while.

That would fix a lot of butthurt in my usual group.

Also dedicated servers for party chat are rolling out with this update. That's been sorely needed for a while.

Xbox Watch TV
Xbox Watch Comedy Central
Xbox Pause
Xbox Play
Xbox go to Netflix

And the new update added voice messaging! Now I can tell my TV to tell my friends hi for me!

Also, the kinect voice commands are so easy my technology impaired wife can use it. She actually gets mad when using the other TV that the PS4 is connected to because she can't just talk to it.

It's GREAT. It gives me those warm "I live in the future" fuzzies.

Buy the Kinect. You will not regret it.

--

Also your xbox issues sound like you need a hard reboot, and if they persist, you may need a new xbox. Ain't none of that mess normal, yo.

300,000 Servers!

Not sure if serious, but Destiny uses P2P for Crucible. The 300,000 servers is a Microsoft Azure product that I'm sure Destiny doesn't use because Bungie <3 Playstation 4eva now.

Lastly, supposedly you can record the last five minutes of Gameplay, but my clips are only ever 26-29 seconds long, and all of the online help involves Kinect. Anything that I can do? Seriously have no idea how Xbone users have survived with this jumbled mess.

That's because you're using the "Xbox Record That" option, or the "double tap Xbox button, then press X to record clip" equivalent. Those only get the last 30 seconds.

If you want a 5 minute clip, you have to use the "GameDVR" app. You can find that under My Games and Apps. I recommend pinning it to your home screen so you can access it quickly. Once it loads, click "End Clip Now" and choose the duration up to a max of 5 minutes. Not really a jumbled mess, just not well documented.

NAT usually just messes with multiplayer, but since Destiny's enemies in Patrol change owner every few seconds, NAT issues might bleed into it.

but at least twitch is integrated and you can watch the game you're interested in being played pretty much instantly.

That was a pretty great move on Microsoft's part.

And for how I personally use the XB1: the Kinect. It's actually awesome with the XB1 and I love it. It annoys me when an XB1 I'm using doesn't have it. And they of course designed the interface to use the Kinect because it used to be required to at least get one when you bought the XB1.

That is a darn shame, friend. Unless they come out with a Kinect 3.0 that's cheaper than the current one AND doubles as a home security system, I'm not going to waste my money just because MS worked hard to make things inconvenient without it (I remember at the LANboree when I found out that you couldn't record a gameplay clip without Kinect. The sheer stupidity of it gave me a headache)...

I view an Xbox One without Kinect as crippled. And there's a difference between working hard to make things inconvenient without it and designing it from the ground up to use Kinect and retrofitting it later, which is obviously the case for the Xbox One.

Kinect is pretty awesome. I give PS4 the edge overall, but it's a slight edge--it's not like the PS4 isn't without its foibles--I hate the Playstation Store and the Library, for example. I hate the way Playstation delivers promotional content (I must watch your preview on 1/5th of the screen? Really?) . The Xbox store isn't much better (where are the freaking trailers?), but at least twitch is integrated and you can watch the game you're interested in being played pretty much instantly.

And a hilariously odd confrontation... Is this how the enemy sees us?

ROFL

I can't imagine the game is always this laggy, but when it isn't kicking me off, it's doing the things in Patrol areas.

It definitely isn't always like that, at least not for me.

Also, the unweildy Xbone DVR doesn't record audio anymore, and online suggestions (MAC address/ app deletion stuff) don't work. This happen to anyone else?

Hasn't happened to me, no. I suppose if it were possible to delete and re-install Game DVR that might help, but it probably isn't - I'm thinking factory reset is probably the only thing that would actually affect the basic system apps.

I suppose you could try changing different audio settings on the console. Maybe some specific condition with the way your audio's set led to a bug? Maybe even just change things, and then change them back.

And a weird thing to note; it let me join a level 8 strike as level 3, and even though I only have the Trial version of Destiny, it matched me up with a level 32 that had Crota gear. That was interesting...

TBH that seems more like an issue with Destiny itself, or at least with the trial functinality. Also, LOL.

Lastly, supposedly you can record the last five minutes of Gameplay, but my clips are only ever 26-29 seconds long, and all of the online help involves Kinect. Anything that I can do? Seriously have no idea how Xbone users have survived with this jumbled mess.

Snap the Game DVR app and it will let you grab up to 5 minutes of prior gameplay. You can also tell it to start recording and then just let it go - though I think there still might be a 5 minute max? Not sure on that, I don't actually use the "start recording" function much.

Totally agree, though, that I would like to see an option to set default clip length. I'm sure the reason it defaults to 30 seconds is to avoid using gobs of the user's bandwidth since it uploads them automatically, but all they'd really need is a warning when changing the setting.

(I remember at the LANboree when I found out that you couldn't record a gameplay clip without Kinect.

Not entirely true - even before the double-tap was added, it was always possible to grab a clip via the snapped "game DVR" app, which could be done entirely by controller. What is true is that there wasn't an instant way to do it without Kinect, unless you just kept the game DVR snapped all the time, which no one did.

Conveniet: no
Quick: no
Possible: yes

All the things I would have to say are frankly classic things - Hard Reboot of Router. Open Nat. So forth.