Microsoft Corp. unveiled its first new Xbox in almost eight years on Tuesday, seeking to position the console at the center of games and home entertainment against a growing roster of competitors that includes Apple Inc. to Facebook Inc.

The new device is call Xbox One, Don Mattrick, president of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment division, said today in Redmond, Washington, where Microsoft unveiled the product. The device will use voice commands and motion sensing to recognize individuals, letting them switch seamlessly between games, live TV and Skype video calling.

Microsoft, the top seller in U.S. consoles for more than two years, will face fresh competition from Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 4, scheduled for release near year-end, and Nintendo Co.’s Wii-U, introduced last November. It also must fend off a larger threat: companies including Apple, Facebook, Google Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. offering an array of entertainment services, software and products.

“Team Xbox is on a new mission: design and build an all- in-one system to light up a new generation of games, TV and entertainment,” Mattrick said.

The company didn’t immediately disclose pricing or packaging or say when the product will go on sale.

A Quick Assessment

The AP offered an assessment of the device:

Based on limited time with the device, the Xbox One feels like an improvement over its predecessor. But it fails to include features some fans have demanded, including the ability to play games bought for the existing Xbox 360 system.

For now, the system looks to be a thoughtful piece of technology, but there’s still a lot that isn’t known.

DESIGN: With contrasting matte and gloss finishes, the Xbox One is the slickest video game console so far, although we don’t yet know what Sony’s upcoming PlayStation 4 will look like. (Nintendo’s Wii U came out in November and is the only one of the three new consoles already available for purchase, though sales have fallen short of the company’s forecasts.) The Xbox’s outer shell, which Microsoft calls “liquid black,” features vented flourishes and all the inputs and outputs one might need, including multiple USB ports and HDMI pass-through.

KINECT: The new version of the Xbox’s camera-based Kinect system comes with better motion and voice detection, including the ability to recognize faces, tell if you’re smiling or talking and gauge your heart rate. It appears as sexy as the Xbox console, but has been overhauled under the hood. It’s three times more sensitive and has a larger, 60-degree field of view. In a demo, the doodad’s high-definition camera easily displayed crystal-clear 1080p video and could detect up to seven people, though it lagged as more folks stood in front of it. The basic motion detection appears vastly improved, but the voice detection feature wasn’t made available to try out, adding to the list of unknowns.

PERFORMANCE: The system seems to work harmoniously together. For example, by combining the Kinect’s face detection ability with the machine’s wireless controllers, it recognized — almost magically — when users swapped controllers.

CONTROLLER: The new controller’s layout is mostly unchanged, but the bulky battery bump is gone from the back. The smoother Xbox One controller boasts a new directional pad and vibrating trigger buttons. The triggers pulsated in tandem with such imagery as a character’s heart beating and a car revving up during a demo with a prototype controller.

REQUIREMENTS: Luckily, the Xbox One won’t require a constant connection to the Internet, but there’s a possibility that some of the key features wouldn’t work as well or at all. The Kinect system is required and will come with the machine, rather than sold separately as has been the case with the Xbox 360. The Xbox One also will feature privacy settings so it doesn’t feel like the Kinect’s camera is always watching you.

LIMITATIONS: Xbox 360 games won’t work on the Xbox One because the underlying technology is different, according to Microsoft. Microsoft was vague about how the Xbox One will handle previously played games bought from other gamers, though it confirmed used games will work somehow. There had been talk that Microsoft might restrict used games on the new machine.

GAMES: What games? Despite the fact that such titles as “Call of Duty: Ghosts,” ”FIFA 14″ and “Forza Motorsport 5” were teased during Tuesday’s flashy presentation, actual games weren’t available to try out afterward. Microsoft said it plans to focus on Xbox One titles in three weeks at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the gaming industry’s annual convention in Los Angeles.

The Kinect controller will be included with each Xbox, said David Dennis, a spokesman, allowing Microsoft and developers to create products around the device’s motion, voice and visual recognition capabilities. The Kinect will recognize users and show them a customized TV guide and a dashboard with the last five things they’ve done.

Cable TV

Microsoft was little changed at $35.06 at 1:06 p.m. in New York. The stock had gained 31 percent this year as of yesterday, compared with 17 percent for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

Shifts in the market, especially in mobile, are pressuring Microsoft to make the new Xbox capable of delivering more programming, entertainment and services, moving it further from video games.

“This has to last them in the living room for four to 10 years,” said Brian Blau, an analyst at Gartner Inc. in San Francisco. “They have to think about what’s coming in five years and compete against the two generations of tablets which will come out during that time.”
Industry leadership is no guarantee of future success. In November 2005, when Microsoft took the wraps off the Xbox 360, Sony led in console sales, only to came up short with the PlayStation 3 after Nintendo’s Wii upended the market with a motion-activated controller.

Console Sales

Nintendo has sold 41.2 million of its first-generation Wii players in the U.S., compared with 39 million Xbox 360 consoles and 24.2 million Sony PlayStation 3s, according to NPD Group Inc., the Port Washington, New York-based researcher.

This time Xbox comes in with 28 months of market-leading sales in the U.S., according to NPD, outgunning Sony and the Wii-U, which is selling below Nintendo’s projections. Microsoft has sold 76 million Xbox 360 consoles worldwide and has 46 million subscribers to the Xbox Live online service.

Worldwide the video game industry generated hardware and software sales of $37.4 billion last year, according to Gartner.