http://kotaku.com/the-state-of-the-xbox-one-in-2015-1747108255

It must be frustrating for the people who work on the Xbox One, to have turned one of the worst-pitched gaming consoles ever into a machine that’s in several ways better than its competition. Lately, Microsoft has done so many things well. They’ve improved their box in so many ways. Surely they ask: Will you not love the Xbox One, already?

Say you bought an Xbox One at the start of 2015 thinking, this console is okay, I guess. Then earlier this year, you find out that the machine you’ve got is one day just going to start being backwards compatible with an expanding list of games from the Xbox 360. That’s better than ok!

Microsoft has this “free” game thing going where $60/year Xbox Live Gold subscribers get two free games a month. Not bad. Then, with that backwards compatibility magic accomplished, they promise that they’ll toss in two Xbox 360 games every month that will work on your Xbox One, too.

They grab the next Tomb Raider, which is made available first on Xbox consoles andturns out to be a good game.

They tap the top Metroid Prime guys to make a game for them.

They stop talking about Kinect. They stop talking about TV, and sports..

They revise the console’s unifying “One Guide” to put more focus on serving as listings for what’s available to watch on the system’s various streaming apps. (Minimal Netflix integration so far, unfortunately.)

They apologize for the messy launch of their collection of Halo games by tossing in another Halo game at no extra charge.

They put out Rare Replay, the best compilation of high-quality video games -sinceThe Orange Box. It includes some of the best games for the Nintendo 64, games you can’t even get on Nintendo’s Virtual Console. Blast Corps, people!

The Xbox people do a deal with EA for another paid subscription service—no one said they aren’t trying to get your money from you!—and, lo and behold, they get you access to one of the fall’s big games, Star Wars Battlefront, a week before it’s officially out.

They add a headphone jack to their controllers so that you wouldn’t have to use proprietary connectors.

They don’t suddenly make it easy to swap the increasingly limiting internal 500GB drives that hold all those games that everyone loves having to install, but they start selling units with 1TB drives (and support the addition of external hard drives).

They produce an extra configurable “elite” version of their controller. It costs $150, sure, but if you’re into that kind of thing, it’s a damn good controller.

Microsoft did all of that in 2015 and nevertheless find themselves with the less buzzed-about of the biggest two consoles. Some of that buzz is literally theater. Sony now holds annual fan expos and hits the nostalgia button by hosting crowdfunding announcements for games like Shenmue 3 and Psychonauts 2, or by bringing guys from Square Enix on stage to show off an eye-watering remake of the original PlayStation classic Final Fantasy VII. Xbox One fans are left hoping that Major Nelson will Tweet something cool.

Sony’s been skipping around this year, barely releasing major new exclusives and enjoying all the positive word of mouth from beating the Xbox One out of the gate while coming out ahead in the quasi-perceptible graphics resolution debate. It’s enough to make you think you screwed up if you chose to buy an Xbox One instead of a PS4, but actually, no, you did just fine.

Moving into 2016, the Xbox One will finally have a new game from the makers ofAlan Wake, will have a brand new Gears of War, a Crackdown, may get an as yet un-dated pirate game from Rare, a dragon game from the Bayonetta people, and maybe they’ll even finally release that multiplayer Fable game that’s been in beta for a while.

They’ve got some minor issues that still need solving, too. The console’s video capture options, for example, are still too convoluted and low-quality. Backwards-compatible 360 games are still not listed for purchase directly in the Xbox One’s store. This stuff seems solvable.

The State of the Xbox One in 2015 is that it is an aggressive contender constantly swinging at Sony. Those paying attention will notice it is scoring plenty of hits, too, and is likely to land more in 2016. It’s a very good console and has been for some time.

A bit more is at the link, but this is the meat of it. 

I agree that MS has done a remarkable job in turning around the XBO ship, and that it'll end up with a great library, both multiplat and exclusivewise, but I just don't buy this "Sony’s been skipping around this year, barely releasing major new exclusives". I don't see the point in that line. Sony's output this year has been on par with Microsoft's, at the very least, if not better (subjective, yes I know, hence the if). That line literally only spurs up more "console wars" which this article seems to be at least criticizing somewhat.

Maybe I should just ignore that line and move on, but it really rubs me the wrong way...

White knight media conveniently ignoring 70% of the year, again.

This reminds me of the Polygon "Halo story doesn't matter" article

An article praising how Xbox has changed shouldn't even bring up the competitors, it is naturally looking to compare PS4 and XBO when it should be comparing XBO Launch vs XBO now, this is what matters.

Idk that I have ever seen a console with such horrific PR and plans at the start of a gen overcome such an uphill battle. It will never catch the PS4 in sales or power, but it's got more than enough of its own good games and perks to make it the better console right now, imho of course.

I wonder what is taking so long with Fable.

"Sony’s been skipping around this year, barely releasing major new exclusives", as others have pointed out is completely unnecessary in an article that focuses on "The State Of The Xbox One".

If this writer, Stephen Totilo, wants to bring Sony into the discussion, then he should have made the comparison to the PS3s botched launch and not the PS4. This would then allow the writer to comment on what the XB1 needs to do going forward to increase the success of the XB1 like Sony did with the Playstation 3.

Instead of creating a console war, which is what the writer seems to be pushing, he could have created an article that would insight a meaningful discussion by using the above suggestion.

The writer also pushes this notion that the XB1 is currently doing everything right and therefore should be an even bigger success than the PS4 and catapult into the lead. Look no further than the last generation to see that it took the PS3 years to catch up to the XB360 and not days.

Odd and interesting article.

Reads like a TV advertisement for xb1.

People keep saying Xbox One has been doing everything right after launch... But that just shows how wrong the launch was. All those "right" Xbox One has been doing is just "copying" the competitor.
Removing DRM
Remove Kinect for price parity
Remove apps like netflix behind a paywall
Give free games like ps+
Remote control or streaming through windows 10
Sure they have improved their OS but this was inevitable after making kinect optional.
All those improvements it's not them gettinf better than the competitor but catching up the competitor.
Now Backward compatibility is totally them and deserve all the credit for going that way.

I own all of the consoles and (take it with a grain of salt because I preferred the 360, too) I can't figure out what else Xbox can do to win our love. The Xbox One pretty much dominates my home console time these days. People have voted with their wallets and the chose the other "one". I bet if more people gave it a try, they'd love it.