By Gwendolyn L. Spelvin

Once upon a time this week in an act of sheer insanity, cheapness, untimely deaths, and a desire to give my laptop a break, I initially bought an Xbox 360.  Through research and a fifty-dollar difference turned into the Xbox One, the most comprehensive PC gaming computer I’ve ever had.

Yes, I said it.  The Xbox One is nothing more than a cute version of a PC gaming computer with the television as a very unorthodox monitor.  With a 1TB harddrive, HDMI out, and a quad core processor, we are wading in the waters of your average budget buy computer at best buy here.

Unlike the golden era where you could just pop in the game disc or cartridge of your choice, grab your controller, and hit the main menu to gameplay, the Xbox One takes you through setups and installations that only Windows OS users can fully understand after the splash screen from boot.

Setting this thing up was worse than installing Windows ME on a Packard Bell Legend.

Before you will ever play a single game, wifi connection setups, OS logins, avatar configurations, browser window modifications, and adjustable settings gives you a nice preview of what Windows 10 users are forced to endure these days just to get anything done.  And all without a centralized start button to make navigation user friendly.

Just like my laptop this thing is loaded with apps, and if you scroll and navigate long enough you will need to integrate even more apps for the little things.  Fear not; the app store has everything you need for a price to ensure you have all the comforts of previous Windows versions before you ever see a main menu.

And just because they are control freaks, your entire purchase history and subsequent applications and games are forever saved to their cloud for safe keeping since Microsoft is straying away from physical hard disks in the foreseeable future.

So don’t think you are that far removed from Windows 7, because this is the touchscreen adaptation that most regular PC people resisted for the very irritation the Xbox One has put me under.

After all, every title has to have a scan, and then a game update that can take hours to days to complete.  So in that time you might as well check your email, read through a few pdf attachments, and watch a little bit of YouTube, Crackle, or Netflix.  An attachable USB keyboard and the controller as a mouse make it even easier.

Two days after settings adjustments, troubleshooting internet connections, checking out available apps, and infinite downloads for updates that never seemed to end, I finally was able to sink my teeth into Tomb Raider, playing finally, something.

For the naysayers still buying into the NES concept and standard of a console, please be advised that the Xbox One can play Microsoft branded PC games, both as digital downloads and from hard discs (and only from the supported title list).  What console has EVER played a PC-Rom?  Not a one.

Thus far I’ve done more PC related things on my Xbox One than I have game related.  And that is just fine.  I was in the market for a new rig anyway, and through a trial of errors, got this little thing that can get the job done.

Is it a traditional computer with complete user control?  Hell no.  Not even the hacking scene has figured out a comfortable J-tag on it yet.  But is it a gaming computer?  Hell yes.  And for once I’m not worrying about whether the on-board graphic card is going to burn out trying to engage a run of the mill Lego game.

Technology and how Microsoft is trying to corner/fuse their market is growing.  So mark my words – Xbox One is just the beginning of the new wave of PC computing.