Xbox One will capture 720p video as you play, revolutionize achievements
As Microsoft begins the transition from the Xbox 360 to the Xbox One, we’re slowly starting to hear concrete details out of Redmond. Avatar transfer, Xbox Live Arcade support, separate achievements, and even HD video capture are all on the table, and Microsoft is finally dropping some juicy information about the specifics of the Xbox One experience. With only a few months until the launch of the Xbox One, these are a few features customers can actually get excited over.
Marc Whiten, the Xbox One’s chief platform architect, sat down with our sister site IGN, and answered a handful of burning questions. Most notably, Whitten confirmed that the Xbox One will record gameplay footage in 720p at 30fps — regardless of the resolution or frame rate of the source content.
While it’s somewhat disappointing that 1080p video at 60fps won’t be possible, this is a decent compromise when you consider the amount of upstream bandwidth needed to store this video in the cloud. Since the Xbox One is confirmed to support HDMI capture devices, this seems like a reasonable limitation of the built-in video sharing. Specific details surrounding Sony’s comparable feature set for the PS4 remain unconfirmed, and a Sony representative was not immediately available for comment.
That’s not the only big news Whitten dropped, though. We can also expect separate achievements for games released on both theXbox 360 and Xbox One, but they’ll both feed into the same gamer score. Even better, the Xbox One will have additional achievement-based features. For example, games can now allow new achievements to unlock year-round, real prizes can be won, and time-based challenges are now available for Xbox One players. For those achievement junkies out there, this is fantastic news.
In addition, your Xbox 360 avatar will transfer over directly to the Xbox One at launch, and gamerpics are getting a complete overhaul. Instead of having tiny 64×64 images, full 1080p gamerpics are now possible on the new console, and it will allow your avatar to be featured in its full-body glory. After Microsoft deemphasized gamerpics with the “New Xbox Experience,” it’s nice to see this oft-neglected feature getting some love.
Lastly, Whitten confirms that Xbox Live Arcade will be alive and well on the Xbox One, and won’t be relegated to a digital ghetto. Be it a full-fledged AAA game release or small one-off indie game, all games are considered equal on the Xbox One storefront. More importantly, Microsoft promises to highlight XBLA releases on the dashboard just like it will with other game releases. After all of the hubbub about self-published indie games, it’s nice to see Microsoft pledging support going forward.
0 comments:
Post a Comment