Well, this one’s a bit of a surprise. Microsoft, who have been extremely eager to push Kinect as part of the Xbox One package, have finally decided to take the camera and motion sensor combo out of the equation, revealing a cheaper price for the system.
They’re cutting the price to $399, or £349 in the UK, but that’s just the RRP so further cuts could come from retailers themselves. The system without Kinect will be available from June 9th, the same day as Microsoft’s E3 press conference.
Previously, Microsoft have stated that the Kinect was mandatory, before allowing it to be unplugged, and then suggested that it’s required for the share features it can bring via voice. They’ve done a lot of backtracking before, but this is huge. In fact, Peter said in his blog about E3, published just an hour ago ” I think dropping Kinect would not only confuse their message and strategy, it would be incredibly difficult to implement because of how integral it is to their system.”
It seems as though Microsoft aren’t thinking the same, and really just want to get their system to as many people as possible, though they still say that “Kinect remains an important part of our vision” and will offer a standalone Kinect unit for people who wish to buy the sensor further down the line.
Secondly, they’ve also removed the Xbox Live Gold requirements for entertainment apps – meaning you can access Netflix, Hulu, and any other video service without having to pay two subscriptions. Also, Max: The Curse of Brotherhood and Halo: Spartan Assault will come free with your Gold subscription, much like PlayStation Plus.
Jones81
Surelt they’ve now shattered any trust in them consumers had in them?, who is going to believe a word they say anymore. I actually think this is a terrible decision
hazelam
surely reversing the boneheaded decisions is better than sticking with then when they’re universally despised.
i know kinect wasn’t universally despised, but even those who like it can’t really argue that giving people the choice of whether to have it or not is a bad thing.
Jones81
I do agree that they had to take it out eventually, but the timing, and the maneer they’ve gone about it is just stupid. it seems about 5 mins after the last time they were bleating on about how important it is…and now this
The other big problem they now have is convincing devs to support it, the install base is too low for that to happen on a large scale and there won’t be many devs looking to make any games designed specifically around kinect, it’s just going to be basic stuff like certain voice/gesture commands tacked onto games that just dont need it.
I really son’t think it’s a an exaggeration to say MS have completely lost it. the only hope they now have is to market it to casuals who nothing of all this.
they’ve lost the majority of ‘hardcore’ gamers and it could take years to win them back,if they even can
JR.
I agree, they should have stuck with their guns on this. They sold a vision and now it’s not selling as well as the competition they’re scrapping it. It’s selling pretty decent numbers isn’t it? Just not exceptionally so. As for trust… If they were stupid enough to trust MS after last years shambles, they probably deserve what they got to be fair.
Jones81
didnt mean to sound like a troll with that post. I take no pleasure in seeing them balls up so badly
Kennykazey
Yeah, the Xbox One is selling better than any other console ever, except the PS4…
I can understand both sides here, but this is basically dooming the Kinect.
A sad thing is that it’ll still use up a certain percentage of the Xbox’s processing power and memory, only now it’ll do so without being in use.
Microsoft is going through some serious rough waters, let’s just hope they can come out of the storm heading the right way.
Kamokazi-UK
I feel really sorry for Mjr Nelson…having to be the one on the front line bleating out the bollocks and dealing with the fallout… no one can be some completely blind to the turnaround and blatant lies we’ve been told in the past 12 months.
boeboe
I’m sure his pay check more than covers the emotional distress caused.
ModernJunk
“no one can be some completely blind to the turnaround and blatant lies we’ve been told in the past 12 months.”
Well Madge is completely blind when it comes to Xbox “Zoltan !”
hazelam
well, good for them.
but as Kenny says above, they need a bigger hard drive option.
though a replaceable drive would be the best option.
and removing the gold requirement for the entertainment apps is a move i applaud.
having to pay two subs for many of the entertainment features was ludicrous.
i wonder if that will apply to free stuff like Youtube though.
and i don’t suppose they’ll remove the gold requirement from the 360 apps.
Pixel_nme
It says on the store its removed for both 360 and One.
hazelam
ooh, i’ll have to check and see if i can use Youtube on my 360 when they make the change, the PS3 Youtube app is a little, well, shitty.
Starman
Should’ve been optional from the start. Very few gamers want it. Mines not even plugged in. Games with gold is great news.
yiddo
Just to add for those unaware, Games with Gold on the Xbox One is becoming exactly like PS Plus. You lose access to the Xbox One free games when your Gold subscription runs out.
Starman
Makes sense really. Giving £20 of games for a £4 1 month sub would be losing too much I guess.
JR.
You’ll find that all those people saying ‘ps plus is just a rubbish rental service – the games aren’t free’ for the past few years will now think this is the best thing ever.
Starman
If that was aimed at me I’ll say for the record that I think ps+ is brilliant. But yes the games aren’t free, that’s obvious.
hazelam
if it means games less than four yours old, and they’d have to be for the X1, the trade off might be worth it.
yiddo
It’s not a wise decision – as it’s something they should have done a long, long time ago. It’s stupid that they waited until now. But, better late than never.
I still don’t know why most neutrals would choose it though. It’s lost its USP, and is now the same price as the PS4 – but it’s still significantly weaker. So the consumer is presented with two choices, both at the same price. One which is weaker, one which is stronger. Most casual consumers don’t even take exclusives into account, long gone are the days of just exclusives literally selling systems.
Starman
Most casual consumers don’t know which is more powerful either.
yiddo
They kind of do. People generally start to refer to the more powerful one as ‘having better graphics’ etc among their friends. Even people I know that are pretty casual know which one is more powerful. Bear in mind the point has been hammered home constantly by various gaming news websites, and it’s filtered out many times into other big websites such as BBC etc. Word gets around fast, especially in this day and age of the internet.
Still, it’s best that MS acted instead of not acting at all. But my god, they should have done this way earlier.
Tuffcub
Hang on.. can you record content without Kinect? I though you had to shout at it to make it record?
Starman
You can do it manually. Its pretty simple.
Pixel_nme
I don’t have kinnect plugged in on my Xbox but from watching streams its a lot easier to say Xbox Record That than having to load up the DVR especially on a slow connection like mine takes an age now for some reason compared to when we where on Fibre,one aspect I do like over the PS4’s recording features is if something rather special happens during your gameplay like you score a spectacular goal in Fifa or you take someone’s dog tags for revenge in Battlefield the Xbox automatically records it.
TSBonyman
Much sooner than expected but i guess it must indicate how poorly XB1 has been performing at retail. Shame about all those loyal day one XB1 supporters who were told it was mandatory.
Ironically, i wouldn’t be surprised to see Sony offer a camera bundle seeing how the bleddy thing is selling out everywhere!
englishgolfer
So the real reason Microsoft dug up all those ET games was to make room for kinect?
bunimomike
Befitting your name… *golf claps*
Splendid. :-)
ModernJunk
Ha, I like it
MICKY17
The irony is strong with this one…
2ofclubs
Although this is one confused and backtracking message they are sending out, the average punter won’t care. Obviously I’m referring to those that have yet to buy one and isn’t that really all the company care about? More sales.
Starman
Exactly. Someone looking to buy a new console without any preference will always buy the cheaper option. They had to bring the price down and losing that great bulky camera was the best way.