What a difference a generation makes, huh?  A few years ago, we Xbox fans were riding high.  Had the world at our fingertips.  Children sang songs of our awesomeness.  That's how I remember it.  Now, things aren't quite so rosey.  I mean, we still have access to some of the best games around.  Our console is still amazing but it gets overshadowed by the success of that....other console.

But chin up, fellow Xbox fans.  As the saying goes, "You don't play sales."  We may be behind in the marketplace but there's plenty of reasons to hold your head up high.  10 of them, in fact!  Here, they are:

1. EA Access

EA Access grants subscribers access to the vast library of EA games for only $5 a month (or an amazing $30 a year!).  Your library gets a substantial boost.  You also get a discount on new EA games and you can play some of them before they even release.  Can't beat that.  AND, you can't do that on the competition.  https://www.ea.com/eaaccess/

2. External HDD Game Support

I already detailed my experience in this thread: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=222079&page=1 . Long story short, if you're like me and you like to hoard games on an HDD, Xbox One makes it as simple as possible.  You only have 500gb?  Grab a 2tb external HDD, plug it in and you have 2500gb to work with.  With the competition, if you want to upgrade, you have to go through a much more complicated and lengthy process.  And even then, you won't go from (for example) 500gb to 2.5tb.  You'll just go from 500gb to 2tb.

3.  Better Media Player Support

Even with the recently released and beefed up specs, it's a little shocking how poorly the competition handles external media.  First of all, it's common for USB devices to be physically unable to fit in their console, at all due to hardware design. Even on the professional version https://www.reddit.com/r/PS4/comments/20xbe9/does_anyone_have_usb_flash_drives_that_actually/.  Not so on the  Xbox One.  And, with the competition, even if the device does fit, there's still a pretty good chance that the content won't work on.  The Xbox One handles content like a dream.  If you can plug it, odds are the Xbox One can play it.

4. Better Cloud Storage Option 

This won't apply to everyone but I currently own two Xbox Ones (a 500gb Xbox One with a 2 TB external HDD in the game room and a 1TB Xbox One with a 1TB external HDD in the living room).  It's a common thing for me to go from the game room to the living room and vice versa throughout the course of a day.  Luckily, thanks to cloud storage, my progress always comes with me!  I turn off one console, log in to the other, and after a few seconds of "syncing cloud data" I can pick up exactly where I left off.  It doesn't matter if I have a paid or free subscription.  My save data is unlimited and stored in the cloud. 

The competiton?  It's a much more convoluted process.  It only automatically stores data to the cloud once a day.  If I go from one room to the other, I'll have to manually download my save data from the cloud--and even then, the odds are pretty good that it's old save data.  I can't just turn one console off and turn the other on.  I have to manually upload a save and then manually download it.  And even then, the amount of cloud storage is severely limited. http://kotaku.com/the-ps4s-cloud-save-system-is-inadequate-1720892737

5.  4K Blu Ray Player 

We'll keep this one short and sweet.  If you own a 4K TV (like me!), you're going to want to see what it can really do.  Any decent 4K TV can stream 4K content but for the best picture quality possible, nothing currently beats UHD Blu Ray.  Xbox One S has it.  The competition doesn't.

6.  IR Blaster

Do you really want to use all of those remotes for your TV, stereo, set top box, etc?  Of course you don't.  If you have an Xbox One S or an original Xbox One with Kinect, you can control all of your devices with your console.  Want to turn your home theater volume up, fast forward your recording , or change the channel?  It's just a button press or a voice command away.  It's not uncommon for me to say "Xbox, watch HLN" without even looking at the console or peeking my head out of my blanket. Nice little bonus.

7. Voice Commands 

Speaking of Kinect, Xbox One S has great voice commands.  Yes, the competition has them as well but not to this extent.  Launch a game, turn the console off?  That's great.  Want to know what year a movie released?  How far it is from Russia to China?  What the weather is going to be like?  Cortana knows and she's right there in every Xbox One, at your service.

8. Backwards Compatibility

Fun doesn't have an expiration date.  Remember all of those great times you had during the 7th gen?  Great games like Lost Odyssey, Witcher 2, or Gears of War?  If you still have your disc or (even better), if you bought them digitally, you can still play them on your Xbox One!  Your old saves port right over, too--as long as they were saved to the cloud.  Hundreds of games with more coming every day.  And Xbox One features like Game DVR, screen shots, etc. mean they are better than ever.  You can even play online with Xbox 360 players.  http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-one/backward-compatibility

9.  App Snapping

Basically, your console can do two things at once.  You wan't to kill some zombies in Dead Rising 3 but you don't want to miss the latest NFL game?  Want to view your Achievements while Skyping with your friend?  The Xbox One has many more apps than the competition and, if using two of them at the same time is your thing, your console has you covered.  You don't have to totally leave your game to see a Youtube tutorial. 

10. Customization

It has the standard stuff like customizing your profile pic, your background, etc. but the Xbox One lets you take things a little further.  You want to change the color of your Achievements?  You want to pin a porn site or a Netflix movie to your home screen?  Go for it.  You can make the Xbox One your own in more ways than the competition allows.  Did I have to pull this one out of my ass?  Yes.  Yes I did.  On the plus side, I have a nice ass.

Best games, best looking titles, best controller?  All subjective.  These 10 are facts! So there you have it.  10 reasons why the Xbox One is awesome! Enjoy. 

*edit* Some features may or may not apply depending on which hardware you own.

"All subjective. These 10 are facts" Erm ok.

What's Kinect?

There was actually word MS may be removing the snap feature in a future guide update. Hopefully they are replacing it for a newer implementation rather than scrapping the ability to multitask altogether.

How amazing is that poll??

I didn't even know console wars existed until this gen. I was just enjoying my Xbox and 360 but never get to ride high *sniff* Well, I knew there's some tussling between xbox and playstation gamers but didn't read any gaming forums and such.

Nevertheless, these days I'm enjoying gaming on xbox more than ever. Can't argue with your list but to me it's all those subjective things that make X1 a great console :)

So we're in agreement. Awesome!

thread blows.

i was expecting at least 9 out of these 10 points to be

"because it has The Witcher 3" or anything TW3 related.

You can use a headset, too. But the Kinect (it's a mythical device. I can't explain it here. THEY don't want me talking about it... They--maybe I mean the Illuminati. Maybe I don't.) is superior because you're not tied to a controller.

12. Less people own an XBO so not only are you part of a more exclusive club you also have a much better chance at getting near the top of the leaderboards in your game of choice!

There's at least 10 things the 360 could do that the One can't. Or the 360 did better.
Plus, the OS is still lagging and way too slow. They promised a fast OS that never lets you wait thanks to processor core and RAM just for the OS. But not really.
So no, the One isn't awesome yet. ;)