Thanks, it's been a crazy week for me! And now it is time for some more initial impressions since I've gotten to play around with a lot of stuff.

I'll start off by saying the X1 is truly an amazing device. Everything has been well thought out to give the user the most convenient, easy-to-use, seemless experience. I love being able to be signed in by Kinect just seeing me, I love the instant switching, and I love how almost everything I want to do is integrated into the X1. 

However there are some things I noticed so far with the console and UI itself. First off, the X1 is louder than I thought (it's not as loud as the 360) and I can hear the fan for it without too much trouble. It almost sounds like the fan has been used for a few years. I'm hoping that this is what all X1's do and that it's not an actual problem with my machine. Another thing I noticed is that while Kinect is more accurate for voice commands, it could still definitely use some improvement (but maybe it just has to learn my voice). Finally, I noticed that when I got to certain cable channels they will freeze every 15-50 seconds for about a second which I think is exceptionally annoying. I'm not sure if that's the X1's fault or not but it didn't seem to do that when I had the cable box hooked up to the TV instead of the X1.

I've gotten some playtime with the controller now and my opinion of it is still really high (best controller I've ever used). The rumble triggers are odd at first but I have to say I do like them. I've heard people say that the bumpers on the controller have massive dead zones but that is simply not true, you can press anywhere on each bumper and it will work just fine. However, with that said, I do think the bumpers are in a slightly akward position and can be much harder to press than they should be (depending on where your finger is on it). It's not a huge issue though, just a slight annoyance that I'll get used to over time.

And finally the games:

The first game I actually played was Forza 5, and wow that game looks utterly amazing (pure car porn). The game still has some aliasing and noticeable jaggies but it's a low enough amount that it doesn't detract from the game at all. I managed to play 3 races before I went to bed last night and I'm not sure if it's because I haven't played a sim Forza for well over a year or what but the game seems so much more difficult than I remember (I play with all assists off). I went from being in the top 15-30% average in previous games to being in the top 70% and spinning out in so many corners :S

The second game I played was Black Flag. That game as well looks amazing (in fact all the X1 games that I've seen look so much better than 360 games) and plays like previous Assassin's Creeds have...so overall I can tell I'm going to have fun with the game.

Overall, very good experiences for me so far.

^^ It's not like it's that loud, just that I can hear it when nothing else is on (and it sounds like that whenever the X1 is on). My 360 is about 2-3 times louder and 2-3 times hotter, maybe (hopefully) I'm just making mountains out of molehills.

My friend posted a pic of his new Xbone on Facebook and its gotten 30 likes in an hour and lots of positive comments too. It's nice to see something positive about it on Facebook after the onslaught of negative shit earlier in the year. As for me, I'll not be able to get an Xbone til the summer because of my studies :'( Can't wait!

just saw that the german amazon reviews aren't different to those on american amazon. almost as many 1 star as 5 star reviews and none of all 1 star reviews from a verified purchase. no clue what amazon is thinking to allow everyone to write a review. they should know that this simply doesn't work because there are too many people from another side who have nothing better to do as to downplay everything which isn't from their beloved company.

too bad that many people believe that shit because they don't know that they should check what verified reviews say.

I know it's for that other console, but just imagine he's talking about the XBOX ONE instead and you'll laugh.

You just got thte 3000th comment of this thread xD

Haha what a great comment it was too!

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/11/26/users-with-malfunctioning-xbox-ones-compensated-with-free-game
Pretty awesome on MS' part!

OK I need some help confirming this.

Is everyone who pre-ordered the Xbox One supposed to get a free year of Xbox Live with it or am I crazy?

OK, I guess that just confirms that I've gone crazy. I could have sworn I heard mutiple times that it was supposed to and even thought I saw an ad for the X1 pre-order on my 360 that said it did.