Xbox One S - Anyone getting on Launch Day (this TUE Aug 2)?

[spacejamz]

Definitely getting one just for the 4k blu ray player...

Hopefully I can just walk into Best Buy and pick one up...the only pre-orders on their site are for shipping only and Amazon Prime is two day delivery or pay an extra $12 for one day delivery...

 

[darkswordsman17]

I'd guess you should be able to nab one pretty easily. I have zero interest in it myself, and I expect that most people that want it are for its 4K Blu-ray capability (I think its what the cheapest device to offer that currently?), which is fine, although I'd personally wait for more details on the Neo PS4 before I'd do that (have they even said if it'll be out this year or next yet? will definitely be a major missed opportunity if they don't have it ready for their VR headset since that would be an obvious way to sell it).

 

[Skel]

Is there anything major outside of the 4K? I bought the "elite" console earlier this year/late last year for the hybrid drive so I'm not sure what I'd be getting over that. I've heard that the 2TB drive isn't a hybrid so would it be slower? (not that there's that major of a difference between the hybrid and the old Day One Xbox I had) I'm also not a fan of white consoles so it'd have to be major for me to make the leap.

 

[Sulaco]

No.

 

[spacejamz]

No.

The 40% smaller footprint than the original Xbox One with no huge power brick is another plus for me...

I have some extra carbon vinyl wrap laying around...might play around with putting that on to see how it looks...

 

[Anubis]

no

I don't own one at all and really don't see a reason to get one at this point. I may get the more powerful one next year or whatever

 

[Yakk]

Probably will be picking one up in the next couple weeks.

 

[HOOfan 1]

Not a fan of the white, I am perfectly happy with how my current XBone Looks, and the size is not an issue for me at all.

Is the CPU supposed to be clocked higher? They claim it will perform a little better. I want to see if Digital Foundry will do another Xbox 360 backwards compatibility test. I am interested to see if Halo Reach will become more playable.

I haven't tried Halo Reach on my XBONE yet, but it seems to be the worst performing 360 game.

Digital Foundry called Gears of War Judgment unplayable, but I found it perfectly playable. I did have a few hiccups with Gears of War 3 though.

I will probably just wait for Scorpio.

 

[Tweak155]

Anyone that has a working XB1 already... I don't see the point. Might make sense if you don't have one already. Otherwise, why not wait for Scorpio?

 

[bigrash]

I might sell my xbox one and pick up the S for it's 4K capabilities.

 

[Sonikku]

Doesn't it also have HDR which is a benefit in future games?

 

[spacejamz]

no

I don't own one at all and really don't see a reason to get one at this point. I may get the more powerful one next year or whatever

if you have a 4k tv and want an actual 4k blu ray player is the main reason to get this guy since it is cheaper than the samsung stand alone 4k blu ray player......granted, the 1080p upscaled to 4K looks pretty good so I can't wait to see how noticeable the difference is....

 

[cmdrdredd]

I'd guess you should be able to nab one pretty easily. I have zero interest in it myself, and I expect that most people that want it are for its 4K Blu-ray capability (I think its what the cheapest device to offer that currently?), which is fine, although I'd personally wait for more details on the Neo PS4 before I'd do that (have they even said if it'll be out this year or next yet? will definitely be a major missed opportunity if they don't have it ready for their VR headset since that would be an obvious way to sell it).

The Philips BDP7501 is $299 and comes with the UHD HDR movie Creed. Same price as the XB1S. The Samsung UBD-K8500 is now $320. Though there's no gaming capability on these. It's a different market entirely. One thing that may hold the XB1S back is lack of bitstream support for audio. There has been many of us on AVS and other forums trying to find out whether it will bitstream so we can get Atmos and DTS:X immersive audio from the XB1S. So far we have gotten no response from anyone at MS.

So generally I really can only recommend the XB1S based on gaming first and UHD Blu-Ray secondary unless we find out it does bitstream audio.

Doesn't it also have HDR which is a benefit in future games?

Yes but that will be available on Windows 10 using DX12 as well. I have not heard whether the new PS4 can do HDR gaming as well, but I wouldn't be surprised. I'm not sure how much of an impact HDR will be for gaming to be honest, games have always had a higher dynamic range than most other entertainment media such as movies. Movies benefit greatly from the increased color range and better shadow detail with brighter highlights that don't wash out picture detail. I'd really have to see it for myself which unfortunately requires you to actually view it on an HDR set and I don't see them upgrading all the demo units with HDR TVs.

 

[sweenish]

It took far too long for someone mention it as one of the lowest cost BUT GIMPED 4K BD players.

Why have the screen, invest in the discs, and then screw yourself on audio?

 

[cmdrdredd]

It took far too long for someone mention it as one of the lowest cost BUT GIMPED 4K BD players.

Why have the screen, invest in the discs, and then screw yourself on audio?

To be fair, very few people have 5.1 setups and even fewer have Atmos and/or DTS:X capabilities in their room. I'm one of those few so I find it worth mentioning. I cringe at soundbars and TV speakers personally but I know that this is how the majority of people hear their games, movies, and music. Through very small speakers with limited dynamic range. I'm pretty sure the people with the proper setup already looked into it and are aware of the potential limitations with the XB1S.

 

[spacejamz]

damn...didn't realize that about the sound being gimped...

so what kind of sound would I get if I had connected the Xbone S to a Denon AVR2100 (HDMI 2.0 4k receiver but not HDCP 2.2 - no atmos/DTS:X processing either) with just an HDMI cable? would i still get DTS/Tru HD?

 

[Slick5150]

I'm getting one of the new controllers tomorrow, but only to see how nicely it'll pair with my nVidia Shield TV.

 

[cmdrdredd]

damn...didn't realize that about the sound being gimped...

so what kind of sound would I get if I had connected the Xbone S to a Denon AVR2100 (HDMI 2.0 4k receiver but not HDCP 2.2 - no atmos/DTS:X processing either) with just an HDMI cable? would i still get DTS/Tru HD?

Bitstreaming allows the container(DTS-HD MA and Dolby TrueHD) to carry object audio metadata as well. Decoding it to PCM will only keep the base layer (5.1/6.1/7.1) and toss out any object audio (Atmos/DTS:X). The console will decode all the audio to PCM and send that to the AVR. Your AVR will receive the same audio except in an uncompressed format and would not need to do any decoding. You can get the same DTS-HD MA and Dolby TrueHD audio from discs that I get except your AVR would play the PCM stream that it receives from the console after it decodes it and my AVR would have to decode it on its own. The result is the same audio quality. However, do note that the Xbox One S only has a single HDMI output. If you go into your receiver you cannot get HDR because you don't have HDCP 2.2. You will get 4k SDR. If you don't have a 4k HDR tv this won't apply. In the future if you ever do get a new TV with HDR capabilities you will also have to upgrade the AVR to a newer model with HDMI 2.0a/HDCP2.2 to pass through the HDR metadata to the TV. The other option is to go into the TV and use an optical cable to pass basic dolby digital 5.1 to your AVR. The audio quality is lower but you can get 4k HDR video this way. I believe this should work.

The general consensus is that MS probably doesn't really care that it won't do bitstream audio for Atmos etc. The reason we(on AVS and other forums I visit) believe this is that most gamers aren't plugging their console into a system with the proper capabilities to begin with. So for MS to worry about altering how the system works isn't a primary concern when probably 90% or more of the buyers barely have a 5.1 setup let alone the required 5.1.2 set up to receive the Atmos audio portion. I think the video portion, offering the first real console that supports 4k in a significant way is more important to them. Which I totally understand. I don't know how many people with Atmos setups are gamers anyway.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I'm getting one of the new controllers tomorrow, but only to see how nicely it'll pair with my nVidia Shield TV.

You can do that? Nice. What's actually different about the new controller anyway?

 

[HitAnyKey]

Any word on the Kinect USB adapter? Is it bundled with it?

Tempted to sell my old (minus the Kinect) and get the new 2TB S model but only if my Kinect works day 1. I might be the only one using the Kinect's full features lol

And then I would probably want a 4K TV this summer to play movies on otherwise its not much of an upgrade ... so there is that added expense. So about 2 grand (for TV and console) to play some games and watch a few movies. Ouch

Or do I wait till prices fall next boxing day and enjoy what I have now.

Smart money is on wait.

 

[Slick5150]

You can do that? Nice. What's actually different about the new controller anyway?

The old one you couldn't. The new one I assume you can as it uses bluetooth instead of the proprietary connection the previous ones used.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Any word on the Kinect USB adapter? Is it bundled with it?

Tempted to sell my old (minus the Kinect) and get the new 2TB S model but only if my Kinect works day 1. I might be the only one using the Kinect's full features lol

And then I would probably want a 4K TV this summer to play movies on otherwise its not much of an upgrade ... so there is that added expense. So about 2 grand (for TV and console) to play some games and watch a few movies. Ouch

Or do I wait till prices fall next boxing day and enjoy what I have now.

Smart money is on wait.

I'd wait if you want to keep Kinect, I haven't heard much since E3 on that. Plus TVs will start getting better at lower price points. Especially HDR TVs.

 

[Slick5150]

Any word on the Kinect USB adapter? Is it bundled with it?

Tempted to sell my old (minus the Kinect) and get the new 2TB S model but only if my Kinect works day 1. I might be the only one using the Kinect's full features lol

And then I would probably want a 4K TV this summer to play movies on otherwise its not much of an upgrade ... so there is that added expense. So about 2 grand (for TV and console) to play some games and watch a few movies. Ouch

Or do I wait till prices fall next boxing day and enjoy what I have now.

Smart money is on wait.

It's not bundled, but Microsoft will give you one for free for a limited time if you're upgrading from an Xbox One to an Xbox One S. Otherwise it's $40.

See here for the info on getting a free one:
http://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-one/accessories/kinect-adapter

 

[gus6464]

So did MS fix bitstream audio or not? Because if they didn't then this thing is useless as a 4K BD.

 

[cmdrdredd]

So did MS fix bitstream audio or not? Because if they didn't then this thing is useless as a 4K BD.

No, but eurogamer said that they were told "it's comming in the future" which means nothing because they(Microsoft Xbox team) were silent since E3 when people were asking and they never mentioned it at all and if it's one of "the most requested features" as they claim it is, they would have made sure it was working right now. Not to mention that they never updated the Xbox One to do it before and Atmos has been a thing a lot longer than UHD Blu-Ray.