This seems like it's the absolute worst time to buy an Xbox One.

Definitely seems worth waiting a few months to see what happens at E3. I think it would be crazy for these new policies to manifest that quickly, but you really can't ever know for certain in this industry.

There was a deal the other day for an Xbox with it think the division, ori, gears ultimate and rare replay for $400. If I didn't already own one I would have jumped at that. If you're going to wait until e3 you might as well wait for black Friday at that point.

I would wait if I were you.

I bought a PS4 first, but I'm convinced Xbox has been far better with the first party stuff this generation. The backwards compatibility has been surprisingly awesome, with free games being included and nice surprises like "oh, I can download and play Geometry Wars in a minute." So I would say go and buy one because they've made great strides since launch.

However, if you're worried about an upgraded version or something, wait til E3.

If you don't have current gen system yet or a decent pc, I would jump in now. Other wise hold off till after e3.

I was thinking about getting new pc based on how nvidia pascal line up is revealed next month (think that's right), but with rumors of newer console hardware, best to wait for the dust to settle.

Hm, I could see more powerful XBone or PS4.5 SKUs dropping by the end of the year, at the earliest, maybe?

I don't know, whether you should buy in now or wait depends on a lot of things: do you have or plan to have a PS4 or gaming PC, do you want/can you afford multiple setups in your house/across many places of residence, etc.

If a future comes about whereby Xbox becomes this ethereal virtual platform sitting atop PC or XBone hardware and you can run your games wherever, then having a spare Bone lying around probably makes for a better second setup (at least for now) than hooking up a thin client (e.g. a Steam Link) to a monitor and streaming a game from your main rig: less input latency, less stream artifacting, less network traffic, you don't put your main rig out-of-use whilst using the second setup, etc. So if you buy a Bone for $300 now, get a bunch of use out of it up until Xbox transcends hardware, and then set yourself up with a good gaming PC as your main rig and have the Bone as a living room setup or a machine at your parents' house or something, then who cares if there's a more powerful Xbox One.1 out there? The Bone is just an economical extra rig that I think justifies the $300 in that situation.

On the other hand, if you can only afford/justify throwing money at one machine for all your current-gen needs (and for the longest time this has been me, so don't take me as some cheerleader for the former case), then these are unpleasant times. You probably don't want to buy a console just now as they're (maybe) about to be outclassed by a new round of SKUs, but also you're missing out on several months or even a year of current-gen gaming if you wait. If you already own a PS4 then I'd probably hold off, but if you don't have a current-gen machine I'd (begrudgingly) probably buy now.

I'd say wait till E3 to see what Microsoft have to offer.

To tell you the truth I'm looking to sell my Xbox One at the moment. It's a perfectly fine console but I also have a PS4 and that covers the vast majority of console games I want to play and I just feel like the Xbox One's exclusives aren't worth owning the Xbox One anymore, but that's me. I would love to see Microsoft update their main UI which feels way to slow and sluggish to me. With both Microsoft and Sony reportedly working on new upgrades for the PS4 and Xbox One, who knows what's going to happen.

Considering all the recent news, I wouldn't consider buying any console right now from any of the big three. Might as well wait until E3 to see what happens there.

For some odd reason when you add asterisks then *great* becomes sarcastic to me, so I thought this was going to be a thread about how you wanted one but the deals weren't good enough. Anyway, minor confusion aside - E3 isn't very far away now, might as well wait.

I'd advise anyone to wait to buy either a PS4 or an Xbox One right now. The moment both started hinting that there's a new version coming was the moment it became economically a bad idea to get a current version now. The existing versions will be cheaper once the new versions come out...

Also, if money isn't the limiting factor here then maybe beef up a PC instead to get it AR/VR ready. I have a suspicion that being ready for VR development is the driving force between Sony/Microsoft console version upgrades anyway.

Wait until E3 and see what they say.

They just did this, so don't get your hopes up unless you're just hoping they cut down on load times.

Though apparently they're going to come back around to the game library UI.

If you don't have a problem possibly having to sell it down the road then go for it.

Funny thing about E3 announcements is that they sometimes don't present an accurate timeframe. Both Microsoft and Sony could announce better versions of their consoles, but those might be 2 years away. Now the question is, are you ok with waiting 2 years until those better SKUs are released? Thats a pretty long time and as you said the deals are pretty good right now. Somehow I doubt they'll say "oh and the PS 4.5 is out.. on Christmas day!" This is a huge move for the industry and if they're really going to move in this direction it's going to take a lot more than simply announcing a release date. The crux of console ownership is that you buy one and you're done, until it breaks or you lose it or your cat pees on it. Announcing the mere existence of a new PS4 that will run games better than your current PS4, that you as a loyal customer are getting left behind unless you pony up for a slightly better version of what you already have - thats not easy news to break. It may work in the phone industry because it's been happening there for years, but this will be a bitter pill to swallow for the gaming public.

@humanity: If they want to update the consoles with half measures they need to do so soon. We are about 2 and a half years into the cycle. The average cycle length is about 5 years (last cycle was 8 years, but that was an anomaly and Microsoft would be insane to let the XBONE ride that long.) Putting out a hardware 'refresh' as opposed to a new system 4 years into the cycle doesn't make sense. In addition Sony is about to put out its VR headset,and if you're going to release a PS4.5 alongside the VR headset makes the most sense (since the PS4 is underpowered for VR.) Releasing the VR headset in 2016 and then the PS4.5 in 2018 is a pretty good way to end up with a COMPLETELY fractured userbase, which is never good for consoles.

Now if Microsoft is really planning on making "Xbox" into a software platform (which is actually a good move IMO) none of this applies. If you don't intend on sticking to cycles anymore you can release Xbox One S whenever it's ready. But why wait? You've already started making announcements, people are holding off on buying your console because they think something new is coming, give them something new by the end of the year. Don't let the PS4's insurmountable lead grow even further before you make your big move, make it now. "Xbox One S is out in November of 2016. If you have a current Xbox One don't worry. We guaranty that all Xbox One games will be compatible with your current hardware through at least the end of 2018. The Xbox One software client launches in Spring 2017, and here are the hardware specs you need to run it. Xbox is a platform, not a single piece of hardware, and we welcome anyone who wants to play the best games wherever they want to play them."

That sounds a lot better to me than "There will be a new xbox coming sometime in 2018. We'll have more details for you at E3 2017."

Considering 14nm is expected to hit sometime next year releasing a .5 this year would be stupid, better for MS/Sony to wait they would get alot more bang for their buck.

@bigsocrates: I think it's wishful thinking to assume any of this will come anytime before 2018. If it does then they are certainly rushing it. Releasing a new updated version of your hardware is one thing, having a lineup of games that make use of it is another. People aren't going to rush to the stores to buy a brand new Playstation that loads up your friends list a little faster and thats it for the next 2 years. Developers are still struggling to make games work "fairly ok" on current hardware. We have buggy releases, framey performance, inconsistent quality and a host of identity issues with a lot of these "next gen" titles. While the 360/PS3 managed to hit a stride where we got on hit after another - solid games with good features, innovative tech and plenty of meat on the bones - the PS4/XB1 era has been this mixed bag of what feels like launch titles to this very day. Games that show a lot of promise but feel undercooked, rushed, or otherwise lacking a full set of features that the latter end of the previous generation delivered on.

So these developers are having a hard time obviously. Now we are asking them to make two extra SKUs. I doubt it's as easy as simply turning up a few sliders to add a bit more AA to the PS4.5 version. You are effectively asking the same developers that seem overwhelmed with modern consoles to now make 4 console versions and possibly a PC port. Thats a whole lot of work. In order for the XB1.5 and PS4.5 to release at the end of this year or early 2017 you would need to have several large studios announce that they will support these brand new 4k resolutions that the PS 4.5 rumor mill is touting. I highly doubt that there are a lot of dev houses right now working on a game for this new iteration of hardware, which brings us to the problem of no one having any incentive to buy them so early on.

What is even more terrifying is how many "4k" ports this is going to spawn. Now you will have the Division 4k edition, Uncharted 4k, Destiny 4k - games that came out literally a year ago getting a remastered version, ready for you to purchase all over again. For years I've thought that modular consoles would be a really cool idea. As a long time PC gamer I thought more options for the consumer is always a good thing. But I assumed this would be a modular console where you can swap in a single low cost part to enhance the performance. Exchange your graphics card for $100-150 max to access the "HIGH" graphic option in games. The idea of entirely new console units with the same closed hardware loop seems terrible for the consumer, costly for the manufacturer and taxing on the developer. Like I wrote elsewhere: unless both these companies (MS/Sony) come up with a really great trade-in option then they're going to receive a lot of heat from people that, say, don't really check up on gaming sites and just bought a brand new console bundle in one of these sales. And we all know there are a ton of people that buy the proverbial Halo once a year or parents that get their kids a console they know nothing about except that it's the thing their kid wanted.

Never buy a console less than six months before E3.

@humanity: If these things are really intended to come out in 2018 then A) They were announced WAY too early (though the Sony thing was a leak, so maybe that's not fair to put on them) and B) they make no sense. 2018 is time for new consoles, and this gen has been underpowered the whole way. If you sell a refresh then you're going to have to wait at least 2 years for Playstation 5. Why not just launch Playstation 5?

I also think that the stuff you're talking about, the 'rough edges' on the games this generation speak to launching sooner rather than later. The problems have not been with the developers, they're with the hardware. The games are launching on P.C. in (mostly) great shape, they just can't fit them into these boxes because they're underpowered. Given that both boxes run close to standard X86 hardware, and I think the Xbox One even has a version of direct X running on it, I think scaling up would be much easier than you claim. A game like Just Cause 3 that has severe frame rate problems on the current consoles might run cleanly with more power on the PS4.5, and I can't imagine it would be THAT tough to make it happen. Maybe you 'turn on' a few lighting effects or whatever that already exist in the PC version of the game, but all you really need is better performance. Maybe a resolution bump. That stuff is done via software settings all the time on the PC and it works fine, so it wouldn't be that tough to implement on console. Just like you ship a PC version that can run on minimum specs or recommended specs you ship a PS4 version that runs on PS4 or PS4.5, with diffferent framerates/resolutions/effects turned on. It's still easier than what you do for PC because there are only 2 configurations to worry about. You're already more or less doing the work with the PC versions so I don't think there's much to 'support' here. It would be different if this were still last gen and the PS3 had the Cell Processor. But this is all X86 scaling stuff that PC developers have been doing for decades.

I agree that there are dangers here for consumer and company alike. But if they really stick to the iPad model, where everything works for a few years and just runs a little better on the new version, then I think it will work out well. It will be much better for the developers in the long run, since they won't have to deal with brand new architecture twice a decade. And it will be good for consumers in that they'll have baked in backwards compatibility and be much more secure in their digital purchases. It all depends how it's implemented.

Getting back on topic, I agree that you might want to hold out until E3, with the caveat that if you have the money now you might not want to. If someone offered me $100 not to play my Xbox for 3 months I wouldn't take it unless I already had a PS4 or PC to play with during that time. I like video games too much to wait. If I had a PS4 (which I do) I might wait, since Quantum Break and Sunset Overdrive aren't going anywhere.

Or a PS4. New editions of both are on the horizon. Will probably be publicly announced at E3.

The best time to get an Xbone/PS4 will be when there's a bunch of games out that play 1080P 60FPS on the newest console.

Almost certainly there will be some sort of upgrade path or goodwill price toward the loyal customers of either one of the platforms if they do this iterative release idea--which I'm still not totally convinced is going to happen, at least not super soon. I don't think you're necessarily shooting yourself in the foot. Unless you're the type of person who can only be happy if you have the single best thing available.

What the hell are you expecting to happen at E3?

@hatking: if theres going to be a redesign or a price drop, it invariably occurs at E3.

I wouldn't buy any consoles right now, the Wii U is dead, the PS4 and Xbone have both announced redesigns, seems like the worst possible time.

I know everyone here said not to buy one, and even I acknowleged that Microsoft is going to announce their more powerful Xbox One in a few weeks probably....

But I caved in and purchased a 500 GB White Xbox One (Gears of War Bundle). I went for it since the deal was too good; Walmart has a price error on their website where the Xbox was only ~$100. So for me, saving $200 on the console was worth getting a weaker version

Microsoft themselves announced their new console isn't coming until holiday 2017, so if Walmart actually ships your console, it sounds like you got a great deal that's well worth the price you paid.

Yup, Walmart did end up shipping me the Xbox, and I have been happy ever since with the Xbox and its performance on games.