The next Xbox is now the Xbox One!

We finally have an official name for the successor to the Xbox 360 legacy, the Xbox One. Microsoft unveiled the sleek console today during their hour-long press conference in Seattle. The company gave us all a shot of the future and the future looks good.

I’m digging the sexy look of the console, it looks like a modernized companion piece to any living room set up. I wish they would have dropped the piano black finish though, that tends to collect more dust and grime than a matte finish. The new controller is a sexy beast, something that would be imagined for a sci-fi show instead of real life. MS didn’t change the Xbox One controller so much but yet it looks so fresh. They do claim they’ve redesigned the infamous D-pad.

What we know so far about the Xbox One is it has 8GB of RAM, an 8 core custom-built CPU, blu-ray drive, USB 3.0, WiFi Direct, HDMI Kinect 2.0 and happily a 500GB hard drive. No word on if we can swap out bigger drives but I would say it’s a given. Good out of the gate specs for the “future”.

Backwards compatibility is a no go for the Xbox One due to the brand new architecture running the system. The system is powered by three separate operating systems, the new Xbox gaming system, the Windows kernel and a custom-built OS to get those two to play nice. After seeing it run, I’ll gladly lose BC for the features being brought forth. One thing is the deeper integration with the new Kinect sensor. Plop down in front of the One and say “Xbox On” and it instantly starts up for you. Using Kinect to flip channels, switch to different sections of the console was breathtakingly swift.

We didn’t see much of the games slated for the Xbox One which is sad and makes me feel as if Microsoft is forgetting why they’re #1 right now. We got a glimpse of Forza 5, a new game from Remedy called Quantum Breaker and at the end of the show was a big show off of Call of Duty: Ghosts. The trailers looked amazing but no actual game play. We’re told that we will get more of the games at E3. We do know that achievements will transfer over the One.

Launch is a tentative “this year” and no price is yet set. I expect it to drop at $399 personally. We’ll keep digging up the juice for you geeks so stay tuned!