News & Rumors: Xbox One (codename Durango)

Am I understanding this correctly that it is quite crucial that the loudness at which you issue your commands are calibrated properly? From previous posts, I was under the impression that this tech is that good, that it would work good enough, irregardless if I am sitting in the same spot where I calibrated it or moving around the livingroom - and assuming that livingrooms vary in sizes, from small to large or having various ambient noises. It might be easy to equalize out sounds going through the Xbox, but what about different noises - noisy road outside etc.

I guess that's something you can't say, but if judging by that video the commands don't work well enough with what I figure to be reasonably calibrated in a more or less quiet room - what about less optimal circumstances (e.g. large room, more ambient noise, people moving around)?

I'm not disputing that the tech can work well indeed - but I question how often this is the case in the average livingroom outthere. How well were these things tested? Did MS test these things out in the field (e.g. employers homes) or were these tests confined to offices where these things are simulated to some degree?

 

You have to design for your audience. I'm working on an app (snakes game for kids), and I've been tweaking the input for two weeks now finding something that works with the people who use it, having to factor in multiple transparent input methods to produce something they all like. If it doesn't 'work' from their POV, they'll give up. If you have to explain something to people, you have a weak design. It's a tragic state of affairs when humanity has become so lazy it cannot adapt to anything with any degree of brain power, but that's the commercial world XB1 is launching into. Relying on a training period for a feature will no doubt alienate a lot of customers who just can't be arsed.

In the same way games no longer have manuals for people to read, but in-game training, XB1 would need a training programme and to build up experience and understanding in a subtle way. If it just presents words on screen for people to say, people will assume just saying the words in their natural voice will be enough, and without prompts saying, "too fast, too slow, not clear enough - pronounce your consonants," people won't understand why it doesn't work and just think it's no good.

 

Actually, I've seen exactly that in an Xbox One Video by the guy who got his device early. He was moving through the app/games list and there was an app called "Kinect Training". So it's there, it's just People don't seem to bother. They should at least prompt you to do it once, to familiarize yourself with how to do the voice stuff correctly.

I've seen lots and lots of videos of people (even the game journalists that test this stuff) that just yell anything at the Kinect and expect it to work. It appears, there are certain timings, commands and words you have to use to make it work. This is far from perfect, but natural voice recognition just doesn't seem to be working well, even with the new Kinect. Hence, you have to follow some rules if you want to use it. I imagine that this will get better down the line, but nonetheless it still looks broken and I wonder if it was a good idea to promote it this much, if it's not working ok. I wonder what the hit/miss rate is, if you use it exactly as intended and everything perfectly calibrated.

 

A dozen or so videos on youtube show people having issues with the BD drive. All seem to be the exact same problem... the drive makes this grinding noise and won't read the disc. Anyone here have any issues?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHK_KIc8P90
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYSLs5yQQ-E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFm4llV1c2g
http://forums.xbox.com/xbox_forums/xbox_support/xbox_one_support/f/4269/t/1625602.aspx

Several 1 star reviews on Amazon, but most of them are probably fake like the PS4.

http://www.amazon.com/Xbox-One-Console-Day-Edition/dp/B00CMQTVK0/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

 

There is one different issue. xbone speaking like a modem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y43Q-KlvQY

 

Oeff.... Xbone has issues too. Bit surprising, because from the teardown even my mother can assemble it.

 

A lot of times it has nothing to do with assembly. Pick just one component that they've sourced for their design, and that component will have a failure rate.

Take the bent pins in a few hdmi connectors for ps4. Manufacturing may have received them that way. Maybe some missed visual inspection.

 

Miss-and-Hit commands is a bad user experience. Eventually people rely on something that consistently works even if few button clicks more required. Or Kinect2 speech analysing database need time warm up to learn my spoken voice. Not that I can use finnish anyway so not my concern for a long time.

This video shows an upper right corner "stop listening" overlay box, its alpha blended to a video stream. Dont know if that is a pixel-perfect or just a global region alpha channel. Anyway this required Xbox can decode hdmi-in signal and mix graphics layers. Its not like Chumby hdmi-passthrough device where all they can do is a fixed opaque overlay box.

Its interesting to wait first reports of DRM stb input signal (ci+, conax, viaccess DVB tuners) and hdcp protected streams. Do XboxOne is capable of ripping input hdcp, mix graphics and audios, enable hdcp flags.

 

The big difference is...

Like PS4 most (but not all) of the 5 star reviews are by verified purchasers...
Unlike PS4, not a single 1 star review is from a verified purchaser as of this moment (48 1 star reviews). And yes, I went through all 5 pages of reviews to see. When I last checked the PS4 page at Amazon most of the 1 star reviews were from verified purchasers.

That would indicate a high likelihood of people trolling the review section to put in fake reviews. Doesn't mean there isn't a potential problem. But that none of the 1 star reviews can be safely assumed to actually own or have used an Xbox One.

Will check it again later today to see if we start getting 1 stars from verified purchasers as it's still too early to tell (only 115 total reviews at this point).

Regards,
SB

 

Does anyone really care how many one star reviews there are on Amazon? The whole thing is a flawd picture to beginn with - if they ship 50'000 consoles through Amazon and even 0.1% (50 people) of those had a problem with their shiny new launch toy - you d'still have enough pissed of buyers with the time of the entire world to fill an entire page filled with complaints and 1 star reviews - "verified" or not - while the rest of the 49'950 would be happily playing their new console not being bothered about writing any reviews at all.

I mean seriously.

Microsoft [and Sony] I am sure are hating todays age of the internet, with youtube and blogs reaching mainstream coverage... especially with Xboxs not entirely perfect working voice-controls, the coverage and youtube videos sure aren't doing them any favours where the mass market is concerned...

 

Most importantly, there will be defunct XB1's. There is going to be a number of failed units in consumers' hands. The question is whether there's an endemic fault like the PS360 woes, and that some were believing was true of PS4 because the social news feeds now provide far greater feedback than we're used to as our baseline. A few failed units isn't reason to believe that.

It's also worth noting that I checked your link and the 1 star reviews. Someone had posted 'risk of fire' and that was their only review. Amazon should do something to stop that sort of trolling.

 

Yes, but you excluded the part of my post that linked to youtube videos and the teamxbox forums, mostly of the same issue. I've seen a dozen or so of them.

 

Not only there is little value in app achievements, they may actually degrade the value of game achievements unless in a separate list or score.

Of course, I'm not big on achievements/trophies in general, maybe whores should do the talking.

Given that Kinect has a depth camera, some occasions for which recalibration is needed (like relocation) shouldn't be too hard to autodetect?

 

Oh wait.. the trolling, anger, jealousy, fights, us-against-them from the Southpark episodes is really true ?

 

The core problem with that type of voice recognition stuff for very basic menu navigation etc. is that there are only very few cases in which it's actually faster and more convenient than just pressing a button on your remote. The need to calibrate and follow specific input patterns only adds to that inherent inexpedience.

Thinking about it, there are only two examples in which voice recognition has really convinced me so far (i.e. examples in which I personally found it more expedient to use voice commands than using "traditional" input methods):

1. Quick web searches on mobile devices (i.e. devices that just don't allow for fast typing) and
2. car navigation devices (being able to control those by voice commands is not only way more convenient and secure, but also a lot faster; just being able to say where you want to navigate to instead of typing that entire address is really making things a lot easier).

But using voice commands for browsing TV channels and doing some basic input commands while sitting on your couch? I personally really don't see that winning against a traditional TV remote and/or just using your XBOX controller anytime soon ... even without the need for calibration and 100% recognition rate.

 

Hmmm... is that even allowed... so "snapping" (picture-in-picture) from the AACS etc. requirements ?

Will be quite interesting... normally the STB establishes an encrypted connection with the display device. If there's AV receiver in between, you have a HDMI repeater, so the encryption is repeated from STB to AV receiver and from AV receiver to sink (= TV). HDCP defines a repeater bit, so re-encryption has to be done.

I have seen quite a few HDMI issues related to HDMI-CEC, TVs not starting up, explicit sequences required etc. Curious how Microsoft solved this.

 

Yup, I fully expect some legitimate 1 star reviews to show up as no product is ever perfect and 100% defect free. What I'm more interested in is seeing how the verified customer review curve turns out. Is it non-normal like the PS4? Or does it show a more normal distribution of review scores. Of course, it's going to be difficult to tell as we still don't have a verified 1 star review. And some of the 5 star reviews aren't terribly relevant either.

And it certainly doesn't help when you have drivel like this...

http://www.amazon.com/review/R22K7U...CMQTVK0&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=#wasThisHelpful

Although I have to say that's the most entertaining piece of fiction I've read in a product review section in the past 10 years.

Basically the Xbox One Amazon reviews are getting trolled hard.

Yes, deliberately, as they don't show any kind of scale. While not perfect and not absolutely accurate relative to total sales, Amazon verified users show a potential for a significant problem.

Youtube videos just shows it has the same defect rate as any video card ever launched, any laptop ever launched, any Apple product ever launched, etc. It shows that yes, there are some defective products. But not the potential scale of the problem.

And again, this bears repeating. Verified owner reviews don't necessarily mean there is a widespread problem, but it can indicate the potential for one. Far more so than random Youtube videos or forum posts.

Regards,
SB

 

So blame the victim?

 

Xbone gone trippy!

 

In this case defending the platform holder is completely wrong (I agree with your sentiment). The onus is totally on MS to make the service available and functional to their customer base. The customer is always right, they may be retarded, wrong, confused, or just looking for trouble. But they are always right.

MS just has to find a way to make it work or their customers will just ignore it. After complaining loudly to anyone who will listen.