【Xbox One】Released on September 4, 2014! Let's unravel the history walked by Xbox One, loved as the 3rd generation hardware starting from the original Xbox!

On September 4, 2014, “Xbox One” finally made its appearance in front of Japanese game fans. As the 3rd generation stationary game console following Xbox and Xbox 360 developed by Microsoft, sales had started on November 22, 2013 in many overseas regions. In other words, its landing in Japan was about 10 months after that. There were probably not a few people who were waiting eagerly asking “Is it not released yet?”. However, the interesting part of Xbox One was that it was not simply a next-generation machine with enhanced performance. Ambitious features trying to expand the framework of game consoles were incorporated from the beginning of its appearance.

When talking about early models, the presence of the Kinect sensor cannot be omitted. By utilizing Kinect bundled as standard, it supported not only gestures but also voice and face recognition. Against the taken-for-granted way of thinking that “if operating a game console, it's a controller”, it presented another option of making the body and voice themselves input means. Of course, the performance of the main unit itself was greatly improved from the Xbox 360 generation, but what Xbox One aimed for was not just a spec competition. In the point of trying to change the experience itself of enjoying games and various contents in front of the TV, there was a personality unique to this hardware.

When talking about the evaluation of Xbox One, the backward compatibility feature is also extremely important. It was not equipped from the beginning of release, but by the update in 2015, support for Xbox 360 titles via emulator was realized. The impact when this feature was announced at E3 was considerable. Many people must have been surprised, thinking “Even though it's a new main unit, can I play games I was crazy about in the past?”. Although not all Xbox 360 software was eligible, there was a big meaning in the fact that supported works actually operate on Xbox One. Precisely because there are many works still handed down today in Xbox 360, it is understandable that there were users who chose Xbox One for the reason of being able to utilize past game assets.

Furthermore, in Xbox One, that features such as gameplay recording and streaming broadcast were easy to utilize is also a characteristic. In transitioning from an era of enjoying games by oneself alone to an era of leaving play videos or sharing with someone, making such features easy to handle on the main unit side makes one feel forward-looking. And initiatives for backward compatibility do not end with Xbox 360 alone. In 2017, it was announced that original Xbox titles would also join the supported lineup. The stance of trying to connect games across generations with the original, 360, and One can be said to have been one of the characteristics symbolizing Xbox One.

On November 24, 2016, “Xbox One S” was released in Japan as a new option. While downsizing the main unit, it is a popular model supporting 4K video streaming playback and more. Hearing Xbox series, some people might imagine a relatively large main unit, but by having a more easy-to-handle model prepared in the middle of the generation, charm including installability also improved. Rather than looking only at games, it can be said to be a model that dropped Xbox One's direction of enjoying in the living room including up to high-definition video content into a more familiar form.

And the high-end model that appeared on November 7, 2017 is “Xbox One X”. Released on the same day in various countries around the world including Japan, due to time differences, Japan came to welcome the release particularly early in the world. For Japanese fans who waited long for the original Xbox One, this development must have felt a bit special. While the main unit was neatly and compactly put together, possessing processing power about 4 times that of Xbox One S, it also supported native 4K rendering in game video. Becoming smaller yet fiercely powerful inside, it showed presence from a direction different from the early models again.

Following the steps of Xbox One brings clear understanding that this game console was not a mere successor to Xbox 360. Starting from challenging new operation methods using Kinect, backward compatibility expanding to Xbox 360 and further to the original Xbox, support for game recording and broadcasting, and hardware development by Xbox One S and Xbox One X, it incorporated ways to play required in that era one after another. Especially the thinking of inheriting past masterpieces to new environments is impressive looking back at present. While enjoying new games, you can also return to a single title you were crazy about in the past. Xbox One was an indispensable game console when talking about series history, connecting the past and future of the brand named Xbox.