No one would expect a TV commercial to take control of a video game console, but that kind of assumption was based on life before the Xbox One introduced voice commands with its Kinect hardware. Now an ad starring Breaking Bad's Aaron Paul is causing gamers' Xboxes to turn themselves on and off.
Perhaps it never occurred to anyone in Microsoft's advertising department that it could be a problem. The lighthearted 30-second commercial advertises the Xbox One's voice-control capabilities. He turns his Xbox on simply by saying "Xbox One," as well as multitasking gaming and TV viewing at the same time. The ad is part of Microsoft's ongoing initiative to change perceptions of its latest console. After a year of branding Xbox One as an all-in-one entertainment system -- a less than successful endeavor that's contributed to PlayStation 4 outselling Xbox One — Microsoft has pulled an about-face, embracing the console's status as a hardcore gamer-focused machine.
Paul does a fine job of demonstrating how the Xbox One's voice controls work by turning on the console, even making it look fun. He launches the game Titanfall and then turns on a TV show in a side window using the "Xbox snap TV" command. He then shows how simple it is to record video footage from a game-in-progress by saying "Xbox record that," so a particularly nice move can quickly be shared on social networks.
Many Xbox owners are complaining that the ad inadvertently commands their consoles to execute the very commands that Paul says, even from across the room. Perhaps it's a testament to how finely-tuned the Xbox One's Kinect hardware is to be able to understand voice commands from virtually any user. Not all Xbox One owners are seeing Paul's commercial take control of their machines, but gamers who've witnessed the phenomenon have been posting complaints to communities like Twitter, Reddit, and NeoGAF since the ad started airing.
Strangely, this isn't the ad's only problem. The bumper at the end of the commercial highlights the new $399 starting price for the Xbox One, even though the version of the console that's sold at that price doesn't include the voice control hardware that the commercial spends all its time showing off.
According to YouTube, the ad has been in circulation since at least June 5, 2014.
