Xbox One

So, I bought an Xbox One.  I'd promised myself that I wouldn't buy one, but I say that every console generation, no matter the platform.  I held out pretty well, this time, though.  Why'd I buy one?  I got tired of missing out on the recent Forza games.  I've Forza Horizon 2 for the Xbox 360 and there's NO DLC content for it.  And, there's no Forza 5 for the Xbox 360...only the Xbox One.

So, I bought an Xbox One for Forza 5 and Horizon 2.  My thoughts so far:

1.  There's hardly any DLC support for Forza 5.  I'm not sure about Horizon 2 DLC support, though.
2.  There's barely any racing wheels for the Xbox One.  I believe there are two and one in development to be released to the public soon.
3.  Two of the three wheels are $299, while there's one that's $99.  The $99 wheel lacks FFB and manual shifting with clutch (this is the Thrustmaster Ferrari 458 Spider wheel).
4.  Forza 5 is nowhere near as robust as Forza 4.  There aren't as many cars included in Forza 5 and Forza 4 surely has better DLC support.

There's no wheel maker that's making cross-platform wheels (ie, wheels that can be used acrosss both the PS4 and XBO systems, although they have PC/PS4 or PC/XBO wheels).

As well, controllers, games, and Kinects are non-compatible between the Xbox 360 and Xbox One.  Really??  This is the type of crap that'll drive me to PC gaming exclusively.  If I wanted to play co-op games in my own house, I'd have to by another controller or two, and they're not cheap.  I also decided to pass on buying the Kinect for the Xbox One, since I figured I'd be able to use the 1st gen Kinect that I have...well, nope, they made it incompatible with the Xbox One.

When I bought the Xbox One, I'd thought about trading in my Xbox 360 for trade-in credits to go toward my Xbox One purchase.  That would've made all my Xbox 360 games unusable and I'd have had to sell/trade them.  I opted to keep the Xbox 360 so that I could still play my older Forza and Project Gotham racing games.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to stop investing in console gaming.  I shouldn't have to spend $800 to buy a new console, a game, and a wheel, only to see the hardware and games become obsolete every 4 or so years.  Competitive racing via console used to be fun, but MS and Sony aren't playing nice with their customers.

Lollipop!

So, both of my phones (work and personal) got upgraded (OEM -- I don't root or try various ROMs on my phones...I need them to be dependable and as stock as possible) to Android 5.0 within the last seven days.

There are distinct differences in the UI between them, with the work phone being an HTC One M8 and the personal phone being a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 (both Verizon phones).

I was underwhelmed with the One, but I also don't usually tinker with it since it's the work phone, so I can't really notice the new changes since I wasn't really familiar with the old options and features.

With the Note 3, there's a slew of UI changes, but I don't see much difference in the system options/configuration.  I've not yet noticed things such as excessive battery usage or bad phone reception.  I did notice that I had to re-enable some of the features I had selected prior to the Lollipop upgrade.  I also noticed an easter egg.  If you go to Settings/General/About Phone, click "Android version" multiple times, click the lollipop multiple times, then click/hold, you'll see a version of the Flappy Bird game and be able to play it!  There are some new features in the Security settings, too, like reactivation lock, "Send security reports" and "Security policy updates."

I'll report any anomalies or good stuff I discover.


UPDATE:  And I saw this article today, showing how much of a dramatic difference each Android 5.0 experience is per device.  It's good to know I wasn't the only one that noticed this.  A snippet:

This dive into Lollipop revealed something very clear to me: Manufactures are, in fact, doing Android no favors. I've already posted my take on bloatware, and I stand firm on that with Lollipop. But even minus what most would consider bloatware, manufacturers are robbing consumers of the true Android experience, and Lollipop is a perfect example of that.

Anyone who experiences the jump from KitKat to Lollipop should get the platform I had on the Nexus, rather than the HTC M8. After the very long wait for the Lollipop upgrade, some users are going to be disappointed--not because of what Google has done (because what Google has done is brilliant), but because of what the manufacturers have done to the latest iteration of Android.

I agree.