Xbox One Subscription Needed to Access Skype, DVR, and 2 Free Games a Month
Today the Xbox One revealed an Xbox Live Gold subscription will be needed to use Skype and the console's DVR system as well as a number of social networking functions.
One subscription will cover both the Xbox 360 and the Xbox One. Other key features users will have access to are the NFL on Xbox, two free games a month, Netflix, HBO Go, Skype, and Xbox One's SmartMatch System reports Forbes.
Sony's PS4 will require Playstation Plus for all non-free-to-play multiplayer games on their console.
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Microsoft's Xbox Live has put the company head and shoulders above other consoles for online play over the years, and with the bad start the Xbox One had in the press, their features for the online subscription are proving to look like a good deal.
It has been a great week for the company so far, as they also announced improvements to their graphics.
"Since E3 we've dropped in what we internally call our 'mono driver,'" Xbox executive Marc Whitten said in a podcast. "It's our graphics driver that really is 100 percent optimized for the Xbox One hardware."
The company has increased the system's internal clock speed from GPU from 800 MHz to 852 MHz, and says the closer they get to the final console the closer they are to perfecting it.
"The time where you start tweaking the knobs because either your theory was right dead-on or you were a little too conservative or you were a little too aggressive," Whitten said.
New changes to the Xbox include the Smart Match system which will used algorithms to pair players based on their skill set, language, and reputation.
"We're really getting into our ability to rethink how we do matching to make sure you get into the matches that you want and that game developers really have the ability to tailor those around both your skill -- which has always been something we've spent a lot of time on -- but also a lot of other factors," Whitten said in the podcast.
Another cool feature which distinguishes the new console from its predecessor, the 360, is the ability to do more while waiting. For the Xbox 360 player to play online, they would have to wait for players to join. While waiting on the Xbox One, a user can play another game or even surf the web.
