Controller feels a bit off.
No idea where you got this one from. The One controller is very much an evolution of the, I'm sure most people would agree, pretty excellent 360 controller. And the d-pad doesn't suck. I really can't think of much to grumble about other than that my massive gorilla hands make it somewhat uncomfortable to play Killer Instinct (on the d-pad) for extended periods of time. Really need to get a fightpad out for the One.
Forza's XP system was adjusted a week after launch (and was never that off in the first place) and it's just patently untrue that 'all' games have microtransactions. Not even all first party titles do. In the entire duration of owning an Xbox One from launch, the only DLC I've paid for has been the Killer Instinct pack (ie: actually buying the game) and the Assassin's Creed season pass ('cos). It's really no more of an issue on the Xbox One than it is on any other console or gaming platform today - and can be readily ignored exactly the same way.
The Xbox One is, on paper, weaker than the PS4. However, the SDK that launch titles were built with wasn't actually complete, and now that it is, the 'resolutiongate' nonsense is not really proving to be much of an issue any more. Along with the fact that the Xbox One will receive the full benefits of the just-announced Direct X12 (which, with its extensive memory management improvements, seems to have been designed with the Xbox One in mind), that gap between the two, small as it already is, won't be that much of an issue as developers begin to get the most out of the machine. The PS4 will always have a pure-grunt advantage, but it's really not going to be enough to really worry about. When the primary differences between the two, even on the launch titles where it'll be most prevalent, is how many lines of resolution it natively spits out, it's pretty hard to identify the differences short of having the game running on both platforms next to eachother. Besides, if one were to care that much about the graphics, you'd play on PC instead - especially as the benefits of the similar architecture between the three platforms will only mean even greater leaps for what's possible on PC.
The new Kinect needs less room to function, and functions just fine with gestures when you're sitting down (though it can [censored] about a bit if you've got stuff in front of you, or someone close to you). Mine sits only about a metre or so away from me. It's different if you need a lot of room to do the active games like Kinect Sports, of course, but the basic interface functions will work just fine with limited space.
Most are under 500MB. A lot are no bigger than 50MB. Games will range from 20GB to 50GB+, though, and there WILL be some large patches one way or another - but you can also expect the same on PS4 and Steam. This shouldn't be too much of a concern in the UK, though, really. There are plenty of options available for no-caps high speed broadband connections and we actually have ISP competition. No idea what your IPS is, but if such a thing is a problem, you'd be well off looking into solutions to that before investing money into a new console - especially as the future for gaming is not going to be friendly to gimped connections either way.
Unfortunately, neither console is because the architecture in both was completely changed. Short of having to set the 360 up again to play South Park, though, I can't say it's bothered me that much. The biggest frustration is probably in my XBLA games not being able to carry over. Probably mostly down to the fact that it'll mean they'll once again get me to buy the Mega Drive Sonic games
for the billionth time when they're eventually re-released on the Xbox One...
As far as I'm concerned, the "wave your arms around like a [censored] to play this game" part of Kinect can do a running jump (though I can fully understand the appeal of such tat to kids) - but the Kinect earns its place in the box for me by the fact that it actually
works as a core part of the interface. I personally do not like talking to inanimate objects very much, but the fact is that "Xbox Pause" and "Xbox Play" are such crucial commands, that work so much faster than finding the controller, turning it on and fumbling for the right button, that I got over it pretty quickly. And somehow it all actually
works - despite my accent foiling almost any other form of speech recognition. It also saves its own cost in batteries thanks to the awesome feature of detecting when you've set down the controller and putting it into a low-power state. In the 2 and a half months before I bought a play and charge kit, I changed the batteries twice - and one of those times was simply after a pretty much non-stop week of playing Assassin's Creed to completion before I had to go back to work right after launch. I've since only had to plug the controller in to recharge once.
The 'TV' things, including the multimedia apps as well as the actual TV-in feature, are why I've had my Xbox One on basically daily since I got it. The ability to snap the live TV while playing a game can also be great when it's not something that requires your absolute focus. One thing I like to do is cathartically beat the [censored] out of the AI in Killer Instinct while watching something like Top Gear on Dave or whatever. I'm looking forward to whatever point this year when the TV functions are actually fully integrated here in the UK and I can hopefully ditch another remote.
It's pretty damn big. I'm kinda glad they went overkill to prevent overheating, though. Another RRoD situation would be a nightmare...
Killer Instinct is a fantastic game in its genre - and even though I bought the Ultimate pack anyway, I do like the idea of only paying for the character/s you'll actually
use and giving the game away otherwise. If you get one in the end, I'm up for a few rounds there no problem.
One of the exclusives that really had me on board for the Xbox One was Quantum Break, as Titanfall is not really my bag (though I gave the beta a fair shake just to make sure). Though I found myself getting really in to Plants Vs Zombies: Garden Warfare and have to recommend it, no matter how daft it may seem as a concept.
In short,
do it.