The Xbox One will be with us in a matter of hours. It’s an easy device to set up and use, especially if you’re familiar with the Xbox 360, but just in case you need any help, here are a few starting tips.

Don’t stand the console vertically

The Xbox 360 might have been comfortably standing up, but Microsoft has warned that the Xbox One simply isn’t built that way. At this year’s Tokyo Game Show, senior director of product management and planning at Xbox Albert Penello told GameSpot that Xbox One users should take heed: «We don’t support vertical orientation,» he said. «Do it at your own risk.» Oo-er. So, best bear that in mind when it comes to setting up your shiny new device straight out of the box.

Do you go for replaceable batteries or a charge kit? 

The Xbox One console comes with a set of AA batteries for the supplied controller straight out of the box, but whether you’re intending to spend all your time using Kinect or not, you should probably stock up on spares. Alternatively, you could consider picking up one of the official Xbox One Play & Charge cables, which can keep your controllers topped up even when the console itself is in standby. This takes 3-4 hours to charge.

Decide on your Kinect placement

The new, improved Kinect has a much wider field of view this time around, so its placement doesn’t need to be quite as precise as before. You can stand it above, below, or to the side of your TV. Thanks to the new wide-angle lens, Kinect no longer needs a motorised hinge: it should be able to comfortably follow your movements wherever you are in the room, even tracking limbs behind obstacles, providing you observe the recommended minimum distance of 1.4 meters. And providing you don’t live in an aircraft hangar. The only caveat, we’ve found, is that it needs to be able to see at least a little bit of your floor.

Set up all the Xbox Live users in your household

Once you’ve got the Xbox One plugged in and turned on, the next step is getting it ready to use. Your first port of call should be assigning any Xbox Live users in your household to the console. When you either create or log in via a pre-existing Xbox Live account, Xbox will ask whether you want it to sign you in via Kinect or whether you’d prefer to do things manually from that point on. The Kinect can then recognise your face and voice, and sign you in automatically whenever it sees or hears you.

Whilst impressive, this won’t be the most practical feature if you regularly sit with another person whilst one of you is gaming (in a household where parents play with kids, for example), so you might want to think about manual sign in if you don’t want to have to constantly sign yourself out of a session of Zoo Tycoon. Having said that, the Xbox One can sign in a number of users automatically without interrupting play. Their gamerpics will appear on the horizontal bar in top left.

Calibrate the Kinect

Whilst the new Kinect’s voice controls work significantly better than its predecessor’s straight out of the box, they’ll work even more smoothly once you’ve calibrated the device for optimal performance in your living room or bedroom. You can access the Kinect calibration from the Xbox One’s settings menu. Before you begin, the room needs to be quiet, and you’ll need your TV remote to set the volume of your TV so it can adequately co-ordinate with the console.

Learn a few key phrases

Speaking of the Kinect, you and it should spend some time getting to know each other. A few key phrases you should commit to memory include «Xbox, show my stuff» (for bringing up items specific to your profile), «Xbox, go home» (for getting back to the home screen from wherever else you are), «Xbox record that» (for recording game clips mid-action) and simply «Xbox,» which will bring up a list of all applicable voice commands at any given time (menu text that can form part of a voice command appears in a green font).