XBOX One launch craze

I am in Redmond this week, midnight today is the launch of Microsoft’s new gaming console Xbox One. I have heard of multi-day lines for buying new products from Apple, but this is the first time I am seeing one for a Microsoft product. I am seeing “Q” lines marked in Bellevue Square Mall in front of the Microsoft Store and in Best Buy, Bellevue where I see determined fans camping in tents in the parking slot.

The technical specification and features of XBOX One are impressive, with two AMD Quad Core CPUs (for the first time a gaming console on x86 architecture showing how far it has come from the humble 8086 introduced in 1978), 8GB RAM, 500GB HDD, Blu-ray Disc player, 4K video output, 7.1 surround sound, HDMI pass-through, Gigabit Ethernet and a brand new Kinect sensor (which doesn’t require huge empty space in front of it). Xbox One runs a Windows OS Kernel on a hypervisor which is meant to support Skype calls and other apps from Microsoft.

I am not much in gaming, so at this moment I am not planning to upgrade from my XBOX 360 & Kinect v1.