Digital Foundry: Hands-on with Xbox One
Microsoft has a credibility problem. Xbox One launches in less than six months and yet its E3 press conference featured visibly poor performing software and a bunch of games actually running on PC-based surrogate hardware. We’re told that these computers are either “target hardware” or “debug environments” but debate still surrounds the technological make-up of this kit – photos from E3 have emerged showing watercooled CPUs with Nvidia GeForce hardware, a world apart from production Xbox One silicon. We have reports of games crashing to Hewlett Packard branded desktops, stories of crashed game executables being terminated from the Windows Task Manager, and a conference reveal replete with the groan-inducing chicanery of “in-engine” footage and CG trailers.
Suffice to say, it’s somewhat dismaying and very concerning that the majority of Xbox One games we saw at E3 were not actually running on console hardware, to the point where we were wondering whether the title of this article was somewhat disingenuous. We couldn’t help but flash back to E3 2005, where key games were running on PowerPC Macintosh-based Xbox 360 dev kits (some of them overclocked, to boot). Coming out of E3, it’s difficult to avoid the sense that Microsoft is not as prepared for its upcoming launch as it should be, especially in comparison to Sony, which was able to show all of its titles running on actual PlayStation hardware. It’s a shame because beyond the glitches, tearing and poor performance of many of the games, it’s our contention that Microsoft has a pretty strong launch line-up here.
And yes, there were some games that were – categorically, without a shadow of a doubt – running on Xbox One hardware. It’ll come as little surprise to learn that first party software was more likely to be showcased running on the new console, with Turn 10’s Forza Motorsport 5 the most high profile title we saw that was visibly operating on the actual unit.
Our first hands-on features some classic Forza action with one track and a selection of six cars – we went with the legendary McLaren P1. The course itself features a misty riverside start which leads through a grove of cherry-blossoms and then out to an overview of a distant Prague city centre. As always the architecture looks fantastic, and every square inch looks exquisitely tooled in its replication of the real thing.
