Getting Your Game On

Gamers are going crazy with choices this year, with the long-awaited next generations of Playstation, Xbox and Wii.

Xbox One T his all-in-one entertainment system hit stores in select countries on November 22, with 24-year-old New Zealander Dan Livingstone, the first person in the world to own an Xbox One, telling AFP he was immediately retreating for five days to play with it. As well he should: You can watch TV, play movies, browse the internet and listen to music… oh yeah, and also play games with the new system. Xbox One has upped the ante with graphics, with massive increases in transistors (5 billion transistors versus 5 million in the 360) and RAM (8GB versus 512MB in the 360). The One’s hard drive jumped to 500GB, twice the size of the 360, while Kinect now tracks six players instead of just two. Cloud features allow you to upload a game you’ve physically purchased in-store to share with friends. But open your wallets wide: Signing up for the Xbox global server world is going to cost you, putting it in the same ring as the PS4. And there’s no native backwards compatibility with the 360, meaning you have to shell out for a new generation of games.