CBoat from GAF on rumors about a Kinect-less XB1 in 2014

Also speaks to some SDK issues, the delays in some countries over "translation problems", and a potential XBO exclusive from Platinum games, but only for Japan. If MS drops an XBO without Kinect for $300-$350 early next year, which is sounds like they're considering, I'd probably go ahead and pick one up for Dead Rising 3 and whatever else comes out on XBO exclusively.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=77008575&postcount=1

"Apologies in advance. Everything I saw over the last 24 months was that there's no chance of a Kinect-less SKU. It was a solid concrete decision, firm as a beach volleyball buttocks, no matter what other changes have been going on around here.

And... weeeelllll, about that.

There's whispers of a Kinect-optional (as in, not in the box) SKU early next year. March or April. Enough smoke now that I didn't want to wait until September to say it. Launch number fallout will play its part."

I guess we'll see. MS would only be doing themselves a favor at this point dumping the Kinect out of the box for people who don't want it IMO.

Update:

Looks like the Platinum game thing is already starting to pan out.

I would play another Platinum game, sure.

That entire thread has spriled into X1 hate speech. A Xboxone dev on reddit has disputed most of what he said.

An Aruthur from Polygon has called him out on shit.

@the_laughing_man said:

CBOAT has a really good track record for this kind of stuff, actually. Go look for a list of the things he's been right about or dig through his post history. Arthur Gies' track record is, uh, not as good.

Not that any of this really matters until stuff starts to roll out, but hey, if they aren't going to require the Kinect to use the console any more, they might as well jump all the way in and sell a version without the Kinect.

Hes also been wrong about a few things. Im not saying hes wrong its just gaffers tend to drool over everything he says and then spin news that comes out to say hes right. Also a lot of what he said is super vague.

And how can he say that the articutre isnt done when they will have a shit ton of consoles to show off at gamescom.

I was going to post about how nonsensical this would be for microsoft and the success of the kinect(in terms of getting games made for it), but they have back tracked on almost everything so far, so I don't see why this would be far fetched.

Kamiya says "Next week... in game magazines..." about tons of shit. I think the likelihood of something existing actually drops by about 30 percent whenever he gives that answer to someone on Twitter.

He's human excrement.

His grammar still makes me cringe. (Yes, I know he's using it as a "Disguise")

Wonder what Platinum is up to.

They should release it without the kinect. 2014 sounds like a good time.

Why wait till 2014? They and we could use a price drop now instead of next year.

@spraynardtatum said:

That seems like a bad idea to me. I would have much rather seen them continue with the connected Kinect requirement for, say, a year and a half to two years and then evaluate whether or not they should sell a Kinect-less SKU. But maybe that's risking too much of the business if we're looking at a PS4 that's got something like triple or quadruple the preorders of the One. I'm no Kinect fan, but the only realistic chance it has at catching on in a big way (and maybe finally getting games worth playing or, just to set the bar a bit lower, work properly) is a large, guaranteed install base that seems to be quickly slipping away. Strangely, it seems worse to me that they're making all of these changes to try to sell the box to people like me who are pretty sure they don't want a Kinect instead of even making an attempt to convince me that maybe I do. The short term reasoning is sound for sure, since the people who will be lining up to buy systems on launch day are the ones who really, truly give a shit about games and who loudly complain about them on the internet, but any long term plan they had to shake things up seems to be out the window now. Maybe it doesn't work without the short term, since the WiiU seems to be sinking even with the ultimate long term guarantee - that eventually some of those amazing, inventive exclusives and first party titles will be released and there will be a real reason to own the system.

CBOAT has been on Gaf for almost 10 years and has a much higher track record on dropping information than anyone else I've seen on there. He was wrong about the PoP reveal at the MS E3 event, but it was later revealed that was because the game was postponed/cancelled. Generally when he's been wrong, it's been due to changes on MS event schedules, and when he's posted the information, it was right and the information changed later.

I guess we'll find out some of this over time, some won't ever come out in public. The fact that CBOAT called MS dialing back the number of countries the XBO would be launching in almost a month before it happened says a lot IMO. Translation issues in countries like Sweden make no sense, even developers at DICE have come out and said as much in the last few days on Twitter.

That's a common joke that Kamiya uses and means absolutely nothing. It is amazing how many people fall for it, though.

Of all people you use Arthur Gies to try to discredit CboaT, at this point he is more MS PR mouthpiece than Major Nelson.

That thread has reached higher levels of self worth than I thought humanly possible.

And it will come bundled with that Prince of Persia game they announced at e3 right? Everything I've seen this guy say has fallen under one of four categories, 1) Not true 2) An easy guess 3) Super vague, or non committal 4) Rumors that have already been swirling around from multiple sources. Of course he would predict this a week after that Kinect news broke.

Everyone always points out his great track record yet almost all his console reveal predictions were wrong. It's just another guy data scouring the internet for clues and shreds of info. I'd much rather trust people like Jeff that work closely with people in the industry and sometimes get some info passed along the way - except people that are trustworthy enough to be let in on some things ahead of time don't go online writing about it otherwise no one would ever tell them anything.

Where is my Prince of Persia dammit

And by "almost all," do you "one or two," or do you care to post some actual proof of this? The moderators on GAF have verified him, and they wouldn't just let some random guy post rumors that have already been floating around.

And if we're going by console reveal info, I'd say he's FAR more reliable than Microsoft. Almost none of what they originally announced is turning out to be true.

If on Monday I show up in a white t-shirt and tell you it's white, then proceed to dye it red on Friday, that doesn't invalidate what I said back on Monday.

Also Neogaf is so far up it's own ass I wouldn't expect much from the moderation team. Developers and games media alike have empowered that website for reasons unknown seeing as it's not in any way a shining beacon of internet etiquette or knowledge. SomethingAwful's games forum alone is better than the entirety of what Neogaf has to offer, but since Cliffy B or someone might post there once in a while they have a bloated view of themselves that projects onto the rest of the internet.

Boat Drinks LLC

CBOAT has good track record.

Kinectless SKU or not, I won't be buying X1 until "Half point" of this gen.

@humanity: It dosn't really matter if you think Neogaf is "up its own ass", what matters is he is an inside source that is usually right 9 out of 10 times if not more. But since most of the stuff he leaks is negative I get some people hope he is wrong, but that dosn't change his very good track record.

Doubting CBOAT is ridiculous, and this comes from someone who dislikes GAF culture and isn't a member over there. Dude's been right on the vast majority of his leaks, has been doing these leaks since at least 2005, and has been routinely proven true under the intense scrutiny of the admin-ship over there and the constant doubting of the regular users.

Sorry, but this is bullshit. CBOAT has like a ~95% track record, and almost none of his E3 leaks were wrong. He mistook the Halo 5 trailer for a PoP game, and got which press conference Mirror's Edge 2 would appear at wrong; that's it, out of a dozen+ leaks or so.

And again, sorry, but why exactly should we trust "people like Jeff" or other folks who cover the industry? They've proven themselves useless for ages now when it comes to A) Actually being an outlet for articulating user and consumer sentiment and B) Actually providing accurate information ahead of time ("sony's doing it too!") or coming out with stories before they get handed the press releases. If this generation is teaching us anything, it's that the sort of rumor-mongers that Brad likes to shit on so much have become more of an effective way to find where the wind is blowing than anyone in the increasingly-irrelevant games press. Forums and social media are putting the traditional "journalist" types to shame.

As someone who's lurked on Gaf for a long time now, I've seen this same cycle play out over and over, of people doubting CBOAT and then having to eat crow afterwards. The vetting process on Gaf is severe, and if CBOAT were just some other idiot spouting rumors, he'd have been exposed and banned by now. Again, the dude's been doing this off and on since at least 2005. It's abundantly obvious to anyone paying attention that he's a genuine MS insider.

And lol. Arthur Gies? Really?

#TRUTHFACT #BELIEVE

Also Microsoft is finished since PS4 is launching first. (Cause Xbox totally did not launch a year before)

NeoGAF can be a pretty awful place and their board culture is pretty self-important and often an echo chamber but CBOAT is almost always right. It makes total sense to be quietly sceptical of his claims until we see what happens and lets face it, things change over time. But I think it could be hard to call him out.

Who is "CBOAT" and why are we trusting a person who types like that...?

CBOAT also said there were rumors of yields problems and then MS increased the clockspeed on the GPU. Which wouldn't happen if there were yield problems.

Personally I take a guy who has nothing but negative news to post with a grain of salt.

On this topic, if MS does end up doing this I have no reason to buy a next-gen console anymore. And I'm not jumping in at launch so I get to wait and see if this is true anyway.

Cue Vinny's "What the fuck are they doing!?"

There goes any notion of me buying one this year out the window. There are several games I would love to play on the console but I have no desire to end up spending more money on another Kinect that won't be supported by developers and will only be a fancy remote.

One concerns memory, and one concerns the GPU. How are these comparable?

He said Platinum Games would be making an exclusive title for the Xbox One. What more do you want?

I would not be surprised if both sides are right: CBoat is a real, inside source. CBoat tends to only bothers with bringing up spectacular, often negative, info. I suspect he really does work inside Microsoft but not "in division". I suspect he could work for internal services or infrastructure so he sees lots of things that he never works on due to the nature of his position. That would explain is why his information seems accurate, detailed, but often off because he sees and hears things but ultimately doesn't have access to final or decision makers.

I don't condone what CBoat is doing where I am suspicious why one would do this either for harm or good. I do however think it is an interesting peek behind a curtain not so much what teams are doing but what they are thinking about. Do I lend much credenance to the actual rumor of a Kinect-less system in 2014? Not really either way but I do find it interesting there is serious talk "loud enough" that CBoat noticed it.

He said no early October release for X1. That does not rule out late October or super early November.

Is this even news anymore? Isn't a SKU without Kinect a given at this point?

Sometime year 3three, console prices will be less than at launch. - oldenglishC-boat

It was concerning eSRAM which happens to be on the same APU. Not to mention, they also revealed the bandwidth on the eSRAM was higher than before as well.

He also said Mirror's Edge 2 would be shown at E3.

Just saying...

And it was...

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=77132623&postcount=3250

CBOAT has been leaking insider information for years. He's leaked 360 specs, EA working on a XB1 exclusive game, a gif of Remember Me months before it came out, that the XB1 was having yield issues and that there would be issues in some European countries, that Dead Rising 3 was in development as an XB1 exclusive, that Mirror's Edge 2 was in development, that Dead Space 3 would have co-op, and a ton of other stuff.

If you go around pretending to have insider information on GAF and stuff you say turns out false, you're banned.

He said at Microsoft's conference.

I also don't remember him linking yield issues with European countries,. Are you sure that wasn't just GAF members bumping the thread and correlating the two after the fact?

Makes no sense yield issues would only lead to it being delayed in such a small market. They were 100k units short? MS's explanation of translation and logistics issues makes a lot more sense to me.

@alexglass: That he got the specific press conference wrong doesn't matter as much as fact that the game was officially announced and acknowledged, which is all that MIrror's Edge fans really wanted.

Things change. And everything he said in the latest thread could change as well. It just so happens he is right very, very often and has a great track record.

Looking over his past stuff it does not look like he works for MS but for EA. A lot of his info is around EA published products. Dead space, Mirror Edge, TitanFall.

It does actually because we already knew Mirror's Edge 2 was announced for the Xbox One when it popped up on Amazon prior to his rumor. So that wasn't much of an insider source giving us insider information. Especially since he claims he's an MS insider, not EA.

He also said MIRRORS EDGE 2, and he said it before it was announced anywhere else, which is especially impressive for a game that didn't sell all that well, and that people didn't expect to get a sequel.

Pretty sure it popped up on Amazon Italy.

@alexglass:

It definitely did show up on some European Amazon variant at some point.

Not saying he doesn't have some inside sources, but he's a very dubious inside source to me. This Kinect rumor is about as solid and definitive as any forumer's comments over the past 6 months.

"If it turns out sales are bad, Microsoft may release a Kinect-less SKU in 2014 and sales may play a role".

So basically the same thing so many forumers have been saying without any way of confirming its validity.

Where's the news? Seems more like he's trying to stir up controversy which is why he's always came across as dubious to me.

What's controversial about a decision to sell a Kinect-less SKU? He's not suggesting it's definitive, only that it's something that Microsoft is honestly considering as a tactic if the holiday sales of the bundled-with-Kinect model aren't up to what they want. And it's frankly not that far-fetched.

You, on the other hand, continually dismiss any Xbox One-related rumor as wild-eyed crazy talk, no matter how sensible it may be and how much evidence there is to support it. Then, when the rumor comes true and Microsoft changes their story, you change your tune as well and continue on as though Microsoft hasn't made one single goddamn mistake in this clusterfuck the company calls console launch preparation.

The argument here against CBoat is really silly, too. "He's not an MS insider, he just makes educated guesses and gets 90%+ of it right by pure luck over the course of 8 years." Yeah, sure, whatever helps you sleep at night, dude.

Again I wanna say hes NOT a MS insider. But a EA insider.