How Xbox One’s UI promo video differs from the real experience

Looking to ease fears over rumors regarding the Xbox One, Microsoft's Director of Product Planning, Albert Penello, took to Reddit to clarify a few issues. The majority of his post dealt with reaction to Microsoft's recently released Xbox One dashboard promo.

The video, released yesterday, gave viewers an early look at some of the features of the Xbox One, including the system's ability to rapidly switch between games and other entertainment apps. There was just one problem: it wasn't a live demo. As you can expect, conspiracy theorists immediately took the internet to claim Microsoft had something to hide. Why else wouldn't they show a live demo?

As Penello explained later in the day, a live demo becomes a "logistical nightmare."

He later went onto Reddit to explain the areas where the promo video differed from the real UI. Here's what he said:

1. The way the voice text gets created on-screen doesn’t work that way. It will appear as one block.
2. The video assumes that the user ALREADY has a movie started (hence why Pacific Rim is in the middle of the film), and ALREADY has a game started. In that cause, the UI will switch that fast.
3. The “Activity Feed” does not go over the UI like that, it snaps to the side
4. When the player resumes Titanfall, obviously he would have to “unpause” the game or however the individual game deals with coming back up. But you can absolutely have a game paused, and use your voice to launch new apps exactly how the video does.
5. The only egregious feature error is when the VO says “Xbox Share” or something similar. Now, the user would actually have to accept the notification or go to upload studio and share from there. We don’t share directly with voice.

"Besides those small nuances, the transitions, speed, movement and everything else is a pretty accurate," Penello said. "I think it’s a fine representation of the experience."

So there you have it, the key differences between the promo video and how the Xbox One dashboard actually responds. Of course, until we see it for ourselves, I'm sure there will be some skeptics. Thankfully, with a November 22 release, the wait is not much longer.