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The new Xbox One might not be eavesdropping on your private conversations, but it will be automatically recording your play. To be precise, the Xbox One will record the last five minutes of any game you're playing, to let you show off feats of virtual skill after the fact. We'd previously heard that the console would automatically create video clips when you unlock achievements and allow you to share them with friends, but we hadn't heard just how far back the so-called "Game DVR" might be recording your moves.
Now, Ken Lobb of Microsoft Game Studios has clarified the feature. "The idea is you're always recording," he told GameSpot at San Diego Comic-Con. "The last five minutes of any game you're playing is always being stored locally on your hard drive." That allows for two different sharing options, according to Lobb: you can either say "Xbox, record that," to instantly save the last 30 seconds of gameplay, or optionally scrub through the full five minutes of footage, edit it down, add extras like Kinect pictures of you playing, and turn it all into a video.
However, Sony's PlayStation 4 has similar features and an even longer recording buffer to boot. In a statement earlier today, Sony told CVG that the PlayStation 4 will continually record the last 15 minutes of gameplay. We're still curious how OnLive might react: since it launched, the cloud gaming service has offered one-touch "Brag Clips" which would retroactively record and share the last ten seconds of your game.
