Xbox One Isn’t Always Online, Will Allow Group Skype Video Chat And Is Not Backwards Compatible

As the internet bursts into hype over Microsoft’s next-gen console, the Xbox One, people are still trying to figure out what to make of the whole thing. Personally, I’m still on the fence and if you’re like me and can’t tell whether to be impressed or not, here’s some additional details to help you decide.

Firstly, it’s been confirmed that the system does not require you to be constantly connected to the Internet. That being said, it does requite a connection to the Internet. It just doesn’t always have to be connected. Speaking to Polygon, a Microsoft spokesperson said the following:

“It does not have to be always connected […] We are also designing it so you can play games and watch Blu-ray movies and live TV if you lose your connection.”

The Xbox One will come with a 500GB Hard Drive, too, so all your games can be installed. This means that after the initial load-up, you won’t even need the disc. Now, if another account wants to play the game as well, they will have to pay a small fee and install the game on their console. Microsoft has confirmed that, “On the new Xbox, all game discs are installed to the HDD to play.”

Furthermore, the console will offer Skype group video calls in Widescreen HD and will also run a feature called Snap, which will give you the ability to run multiple apps at the same time.

Now, for some unfortunate news, the Xbox One won’t be able to play Xbox 360 games. To make matters even worse, you can’t transfer over your XBLA purchases either, which is a huge downside to the console. I mean, I guess it’s the same thing that’s going on with the PS4 but at the very least, it would have been nice to transfer your arcade titles over.

That being said, this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise since the Xbox One and Xbox 360 run on two totally different architectures. It would take a lot of extra work to get the console to play 360/XBLA games and to be quite honest, at this point, it probably just wasn’t worth it. It would complicate matters too much and would probably be detrimental for the long term future of the console.

One thing that will transfer over, however, is your gamerscore. I’m sure a lot of people will breath a sigh of relief after hearing that.

So, that’s about it for additional Xbox One details. There’s still a lot that we don’t know but with E3 right around the corner, I’m sure we’ll hear more soon.