Multitasking

On current systems, switching from a game to another app or function usually requires pausing and quitting a game. On the Xbox One, Henshaw stressed, you never have to quit out of a game or lose your progress to check in on some other, non-gaming task elsewhere on the system. The game you're playing stays in active memory no matter what else you are doing, remaining there until you load another game or turn the system off.

In the demo, we paused a game of Forza Motorsport 5 and jumped around to Internet Explorer, Skype, Xbox Music, and some live TV before returning to the game just where we left it. This switching was incredibly quick. As soon as the voice command was recognized, the current app slid out and the new app slid right in. If the new app had been used recently and was still "hot" in memory, it was instantly usable at that point; if not, the app went through a quick startup sequence (there was a live snafu, though, when Skype had to go through its 10-second cold-load sequence after a switch, despite having been just loaded into memory).

Previous Microsoft demos have suggested that the system can also hold up to four recent apps in system memory alongside a game. Henshaw clarified that this number is not set in stone and that up to 10 apps can be held in memory at a time depending on their memory footprint. In practice, Henshaw says, it's usually three to five apps that can be held in memory at once.

More than quick switching between active apps, Microsoft is also pushing the ability to snap an app on the right-most quarter of the screen, Windows 8-style, while another app or game runs in the larger portion. Simply saying "Xbox, snap [application]" at any point brings up a version of the app tailored for this smaller screen real estate, while "Xbox Unsnap" returns the main app to the full screen (saying "Xbox, switch" can determine which live window you're actively controlling).

One of the most interesting features for the snap functionality is the ability to put a live TV show in a tiny window in the corner while playing an Xbox One game in the main area, making for a sort of built-in picture-in-picture mode through the system itself (replacing the janky PiP modes on many TVs). The Xbox One actually blends the audio from both sources in this mode. It's a bit annoying if you want to listen to only one source, but you can mute the audio from within some games.

We played around with a few other multitasking options here, like viewing fantasy stats while watching a football game, but I think the real potential for this feature is going to be keeping track of things like Twitter streams or IM chats while still playing a game or watching a show. These kinds of apps were never that useful when they had to take up the entire TV, but as content that runs alongside something more interesting, they could have new value.

Your only input

The ability to pass a live TV input through your Xbox One may seem like a mere convenience, but Henshaw explained that Microsoft wants the Xbox One input on your TV to be the only one you have to use, so you're always connected to the system's suite of services while the system is on. "On other gaming systems, in order to take a quick check on what's on TV, take a Skype call, browse the Web, I have to switch inputs," he said. "And switching inputs is death for gamers, because it cuts them off from their community. As soon as you turn inputs on the TV, you're no longer getting game invites, multiplayer invites, leaderboard change notifications, or invitations of any sort. You are cut off."

Running your TV through the system also gives you access to a voice-activated universal remote through the Kinect. Give a command like "Xbox, volume up" and the Xbox tells the Kinect to send out the appropriate IR signal, which bounces off the walls and objects in the room to head back to your TV, cable box, and/or audio receiver. Tweaking the volume three decibels at a time wasn't all that appealing, but being able to jump to a specific channel simply by saying "Xbox, watch ESPN"—no memorized channel number required—was much more compelling.

Watching TV through the Xbox One also means having access to the system's OneGuide system. Henshaw described this on-screen grid as much better than cable box programming guides that he said were "like vestiges of the cold war," but Microsoft's offering looked pretty similar to my eyes. The OneGuide does offer the ability to quickly jump to the listings for a certain channel with a voice command and to organize favorite channels into a particular section. Video apps are integrated into OneGuide, so you can see new shows available on Hulu Plus or HBO Go alongside live TV listings.

DVR and Skype

My Xbox One demo also included a brief glimpse at the system's much-ballyhooed game DVR functions. While playing Forza Motorsport 5, I called out, "Xbox, record that" and got a clip of the last 30 seconds saved directly to my system without a bump in game performance. After that, I could pause and switch over to Upload Studio to extend the clip out to a full five minutes if I wished. There were even options to add voice-overs or video taunts through the Kinect. After that, it took 15 or 20 seconds to encode and upload the video to share with friends.

Clips on the Xbox One are recorded in 720p at 30 frames per second, but a previously uploaded clip I watched looked considerably worse than that, with plenty of color clumping and streaming artifacts. It's hard to say if this was due to the quality of the Internet connection at the demo or an actual problem with the upload.

I also got a quick demo of a Kinect-powered Skype video chat with a Microsoft employee working from his home. The most interesting feature of this demo was the Kinect's ability to track the "engaged users" in each room and to do a live, software-level pan and zoom in on their location. This digital zoom features can tell between people who are engaged in the conversation and others in the room who are just sitting there reading or doing something else, for instance. (Additionally, as Henshaw put it, "we know that dogs are dogs, we know that cats are cats, and we ignore them.")

Overall, my short time with the Xbox One's system interface made me eager to try the system out in my own home and see if its voice commands and multitasking features could actually make Xbox One the only input I need on my TV. Before the demo, I was leaning toward "no" as an answer to that question, but now I'm leaning a little closer to "yes."