I’m not sure how I feel about unboxing videos just yet. I love the mystery of opening a brand new product. The smell of plastic, the ever-so carefully packed products(good luck getting them back in there), surprise paperwork, etc. In some cases though, the wait for some things is just too much to bear. This is especially the case when a game comes out and I can’t go get it upon release for some reason(work, family stuff, etc.). We have here a unique unboxing: one that takes place three months before the product is released. Major Nelson recorded himself unboxing the Xbox One. I couldn’t wait, I had to see it. How did it go?
This is a bit…unfancy for such an important unboxing. Then again, Major Nelson has never been known for being a very fun or entertaining guy, he’s just really good at his job. This is a very by the numbers unboxing, which is good for me. He takes out everything piece by piece. The notable things here for me were the new controller and the console itself. I will give my impression on each piece in order.
The Kinect looks fairly large. It won’t go on top of your TV, so you better have enough room around the base of it from the looks of it. It doesn’t look like a deal breaker, but it’s something to keep in mind. The headset looks standard. It’s supposed to be lighter and a lot better than the 360 ones, but that needs to be tested. The power brick unfortunately still looks large enough to be lethal when thrown. The controller has the nice “Day One 2013” branding, but more notable is the silver D-Pad. There are supposedly over 40 improvements in the controller, this is something that you have to hold to really test. The console itself looks a bit bigger than I expected it to. It definitely looks like I will be able to sit my Xbox 360 on top of the Xbox One. It looks like the ring of light is gone as well. How will we know if we got the red ring of death?! There are quite a few ports in the back of the system, although I think it should have more USB 3.0 ports, there’s only three.
I think this was a good move on Microsoft’s part. Having an unboxing this much before can increase confidence in how good the product will be at launch. As announced recently, the Xbox One is being designed to be on for ten years straight. That is quite a claim. It is made mainly to reinforce the idea of the Xbox One being your main entertainment source in the living room. For me, it increases confidence on the reliability of the product. For $500 I better be confident. Still, it was good seeing the Xbox One in a more personal setting. Don’t expect to be entertained by Major Nelson, the main reason to watch this video is to get a view of the Xbox One coming out of its box. I can’t wait until November until I can unbox my own…and lose a lot of money.