There has been a series of threats around here that we were going to get one of these custom editions of Microsoft’s Xbox One console for ourselves. We have bragged about it, it made it to this year’s Holiday Gift Guide and it won our Editors’ Choice award for consoles this year.
Truly a custom version of the Xbox One that stands out on its own by demanding attention from everyone who enters: “oh looks, it’s the Halo 5 edition console!”. We have been talking about it for months now ever since Microsoft announced it. PS4 and Xbox were neck and neck all year, but in the end it came down to options and style, allowing it to take the award.
Featuring a 1TB drive inside for downloadable content and one of the top video games for this holiday season (Halo 5: Guardians), it already has something to offer. Then you throw in the bonus digital content you can download and the odd little MetalEarth model (none of us were excited any about it and believe they should have included a true model to display that doesn’t require putting together cheap/thin pieces of metal) that comes inside and you have yourself a busy bundle.
The design is simply where it steals the cake though. The 1TB drive is important as these games are getting larger and larger in size making 500GB instantly obsolete–however, the design of the console and remote just makes it so unique. None of the PS4 bundles featured such a detailed design. Sure you have a Black Ops and Star Wars custom PS4 available, but they look nothing more than a few colorful lines and/or decals. Not a lot of imagination went into them. Microsoft however focused solely on detail with this one as it takes the console to a whole new level of bad-a***ism.
We threatened to get one for ourselves and keep it here in the office and now it has been done. Lunch breaks will never be the same again. It proudly sits in one of our demo labs that has currently been turned into “Breakroom 2.0” and has been getting a lot of attention.
I’d go into a full review of the Xbox One, but that would be nothing new. You know what it’s about and how high it ranks in the fun scale. Now add in some custom sounds for when you turn it on, off or hit the eject button and everything else discussed and you have the custom bundle. Oh, you also get the animated series “Halo: The Fall of Reach”.
You will find fans of both consoles here, leaving a brilliantly colorful yet balanced standoff in general console opinion. However, we can all come together on this one and enjoy the fact that it successfully took the Editors’ Choice award for gaming. An award that has never been given by us to any console because our opinions have always been so matched, making it impossible to choose just one.
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