Microsoft launched its next generation of gaming with nationwide parties Thursday night, which brought fans to the Bellevue Square Mall in droves to be among the first to play the long-anticipated Xbox One.
While the party in Bellevue didn’t officially get underway until 10 p.m. Thursday, Henning and Colleen Jensen of Kent took their places at the front of the line by arriving at 3:30 p.m., taking turns getting food and using the facilities and entertaining themselves with their smartphones and iPad. Their determination paid off during Microsoft’s raffle prize giveaways. When Henning Jensen’s number was called, the emcee gave him not one, but two $20 gift cards.
“He’s a hardcore gamer,” said Colleen Jensen, “he and my daughter. His son, too.”
The couple preordered one of the consoles, which run around $500, and planned to buy another one for Colleen Jensen’s daughter. The time commitment to get the Xbox One on Day One wouldn’t be the same for Henning Jensen’s first-day game play, however.
“He has to be up at three in the morning to go to work,” said his wife. “He will not be calling in sick.”
Luis Gomez of Kent spent part of his night at the University Village Microsoft Store in Seattle watching a Killer Instinct tournament before heading to Bellevue to sign up for the one there featuring the exclusive-title fighting game.
“It’s a lot faster, a lot more smooth because, of course, the older consoles they couldn’t push them that much,” he said of Killer Instinct, the last incarnation having been released 17 years ago. Gomez added his goal was to win the grand prize $500 Microsoft gift card in order to afford the new console. “Sadly, tonight I don’t have any money to get it.”
Sophia Mora of Auburn said she’s enjoyed her Xbox 360 over the past eight years, but couldn’t wait to get her preordered Xbox One. She showed up at the Bellevue store with her friends around 6 p.m. This was her first time attending a console launch party, but Mora said the positive attitude of her fellow gamers and Microsoft employees made for an entertaining wait.
The Xbox 360 hit stores in 2005 with Sony’s Playstation 3 coming out a year later. With both companies launching their eighth-generation gaming consoles in the same year – just a week apart – there was a lot of drive on both sides to offer some of the most advanced features possible. The Xbox One offers voice command, Skype, a highly-demanded Blu-ray drive, a modified controller and gameplay recording, to name a few.
“The multitasking, the real-fast hard drive and the multiplayer that they have that can match players up by their skills,” said Mora of the features she’s excited about. “This one is a really good improvement.”
