Xbox One Unveiled

Today at a press conference at the Xbox campus in Redmond, Washington, Microsoft representatives revealed Xbox One, the successor to Xbox 360, first released in 2005.

According to Don Mattrick, President of the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft, the goal of Xbox One is "to become the all-in-one system for every living room." The great majority of time during the presentation was dedicated to multimedia applications and multimedia interactivity. Yusuf Medhi, senior vice president of Microsoft's interactive entertainment business, showed off "snap mode," which allows users to play a game or watch a movie while simultaneously browsing the internet, for example. Also, the new Kinect, bundled with every Xbox One, will respond to new voice commands and gestures.

Representatives from EA Sports and Activision were represented at the conference. EA Sports games shown include new versions of FIFA, Madden, NBA Live and UFC, all of which will be released in the next 12 months. Activision showed off Call of Duty: Ghosts, "the best Call of Duty game we've ever made."

From left to right: Kinect, console, controller.

Other games include Forza Motorsport 5, due at launch, and a new game from Alan Wake developer Remedy called Quantum Break. Microsoft promised a total of 15 exclusive games during the first year of Xbox One, eight of which are brand new titles.

Bonnie Ross, head of Halo-maker 343 Industries, announced a new Halo TV series produced by Executive Producer extraordinaire Steven Spielberg.

The presentation ended with gameplay footage from Call of Duty: Ghosts, which will feature exclusive content on Xbox One.

Xbox One will arrive before the end of the year.

Update: Xbox One will not support Xbox 360 games. Also, Microsoft will charge a "pre-owned fee" to play used games.

Update #2: Xbox One "does not have to be always connected, but Xbox One does require a connection to the Internet." It looks like Xbox games will need to be activated via an internet connection, however.