The XBOX One

It’s hard to tell if this is a selective promotion or not. I eventually got access to the $5 price but that involved restarting my console and signing in and out of my Microsoft account on two different browsers. It is not very accessible.

I’m wondering if Microsoft only intended to sell 1 month at a reduced price per account. Then the roll-out was flawed and allowed users to stack over a year of subscription. They probably caught on to that and tried to prevent it this weekend? I don’t know, just a theory.

Probably because they weren’t selling enough to make them worth manufacturing. The kinect is kinda shitty, mine broke within a year of getting the Xbox One. All it did was sit on top of the TV, it’s not like it was mistreated. It just broke on its own.

I beg to differ. Mine was used daily since launch and the whole family is annoyed at MS since it’s only the lack of an adapter cable for my One X which has now turned it into a paper weight.

The least MS could have done is have done stock availability when the X launched for owners of the original model who had Kinect included in the box upgrading.

The only use I see for Kinect right now is if you need a camera to stream on Twitch. What is your family using it for?

Voice commands used extensively to navigate the UI and control playback by the whole family.

Having to revert back to controller only is a big step back.

And my daughter still played Kinect games somewhat regularly. All of a sudden, MS has decided for us we didn’t need to be able to do any of that anymore.

My brother in Oregon uses it mostly for voice commands every day, like me. We both use Over-The-Air Antennas to watch TV on the One, and don’t want to always find the controller, switch it on, pause tv, and then come back, switch on the controller, unpause the program. Instead we just say Xbox Pause, and then come back later and say Xbox Play. Simple use, I know, but it’s nice to have.

My other brother here in Kansas City uses it for voice commands, and his kids still like playing dancing games on it.

I do plan to play Dance Central on it one day, I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. Maybe when my son is a little older and can play it with me.

The voice commands could be useful, but the camera was mostly pointless. Funny that MS had essentially an Alexa, Google Home, type device in the home first but it’s dead now.

You could break out the soldering iron . . .

Tuesday morning again, and another round of Xbox 360 back compat releases. This week we get Mafia 2 and Prey - remember Prey? No, the other one! Also both are part of the weekly 2K sale on the marketplace so bonus!

Native American Prey! Magnetic boots and stepping through portals! I do miss that game. I wonder if it holds up.

It has pretty good multiplayer, I wonder if a game can be had this week . . .

I didn’t know the game had multiplayer. Could you be standing on the glowing blue walls like in single player?

Yeah, the gravity-bending stuff was in some of the maps (some were more conventional). Pretty wild.

Thanks to all for pointing out the game pass deal. It’s almost overwhelming looking at the list of what’s available.

Yeah I signed up too. Most of the games are things I’ve already played or don’t have a ton of interest in but I’ll definitely be playing Sea of Thieves so it’ll be worth it for a while at least.

We’ve got our Games with Gold for March:

Cool, I’ve wanted to play both of those Xbox Ones.

Is Quantum Conundrum the game that’s like Portal?

SUPERHOT is a nice addition!

Nice. Looking forward to those.

Well, except Brave. I doubt a licensed game of a movie is any good. But who knows, maybe I’ll be surprised.

I haven’t played it, but Kim Swift is the lead designer of QC. She was the lead designer of Portal (and one of a team that conceived of the Portal concept).