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How Xbox One and PS4 have finally come of age

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FOR years, games consoles were confined to bedrooms, where fans could blast away at characters on screen with outsize weaponry or play football games that made you feel you were really there in the stadium.



It's all down to their evolution from a games centre for teenagers and guys who never grew up to an entertainment hub - streaming films, running the net, playing music - for the entire family.
Microsoft's Xbox One, launched at midnight on Thursday, and Sony's new PlayStation 4, on sale this coming Friday, are now marketed as an entertainment centre for the entire household .
"This is a savvy bit of marketing by both companies," Scots gaming expert Scott Munro said yesterday. "Microsoft and Sony realised that by restricting their consoles to games they were limiting their market. If they advertise them as all-singing, all-dancing media systems for the family, they open the consoles up to a much wider market.
"Their idea is to market the consoles as a means of watching movies or TV, for games, for listening to or streaming music, or even for talking to friends via Skype.
"They're trying to muscle in on traditional Freeview or Sky box territory and to do absolutely everything for mum, dad and the kids."
The battle between the Xbox and Sony's PlayStation has been on the go for more than a decade.
Microsoft spared little expense in launching the Xbox One, with ­headline-grabbing events in New York and Los Angeles.
London's Leicester Square featured a pre-launch party with best-selling acts Katy B and Plan B, while across the UK, some 300 game shops and 100 Tesco stores opened at midnight to cope with the demand.
Sony sold one million of its PS4 units on its first day in the States in mid-November with its early American launch. One advantage that the PS4 has over the Xbox One is price: it is £80 cheaper at £349.
While hardcore gamers will lap up the new consoles and stick to playing Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty or Assassin's Creed on them, the notion that consoles have wider potential has not gone unnoticed.
"Xbox One review: More than a game console, less than a living room revolution," ran a headline on the ars.technica website this week as it scrutinised the new Microsoft offering.
Its reviewer, Kyle Orland, wrote: "Microsoft is positioning its newest system as the centre of a Netflix-filled, Kinect-powered, do-everything-on-your-TV world controlled through a single source.
"Yes, playing games is still a big part of the Xbox One, but this is a system designed to be on whenever your TV is on. Microsoft claims that the Xbox One is the only box you'll need to control all of your visual entertainment."
Orland did, however, add a word of caution: "There are still a few kinks to be worked out before the Xbox One truly becomes the centre of everything you do on your TV."
MICROSOFTS'S corporate vice-president Phil Harrison, who runs its gaming unit in Europe, said earlier this week: "This is a great time to be a gamer, with all this activity going on.
"What we have delivered is this amazing place to play games but it's also an all-in-one entertainment device: all your digital content, all your entertainment - movies, music, television - and communication, in the living room, all in one box.
"It is a great gaming console, it's the best place to play games, with the most amazing line-up, but we've taken it further. We want it to be the place where your television, your music and your movies all co-exist."
But living-rooms could witness conflict if parents want to watch a programme on their console-enabled TV while teenagers insist on whacking crooks in Grand Theft Auto.
"That's a problem," Munro acknowledges. "Nintendo tried to get round this with their Wii U console, which allows you to put your game onto your controller, which has a screen, and take that into another room, so that you can still play while your mum watches Strictly Come Dancing.
"This isn't something that Microsoft or Sony have embraced yet. But these consoles are going to have a six, seven or eight-year lifespan and will evolve. Things might happen where new controllers come out that enable kids to play games on their tablet computer while allowing others in the family to watch TV."
One startling fact helps convey the scale of the remarkable advances in video games and consoles. The cloud-power of the 300,000 servers that Microsoft is harnessing to support its Xbox One is equivalent to the entire computing power on the planet in 1999. The revolution may not be complete, but it is certainly under way.
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