Let's Talk About Microsoft's Big Xbox News Today

This smells a bit of desperation but winds up benefitting consumers.

Thank you, Alex, for mirroring my thoughts exactly.

I think it's ultimately good news, but it shouldn't necessarily mean praise for Microsoft. They screwed people for years, because they were leading the pack. I think they really messed up with the Xbox One. How out of touch can you be in order to spend millions of dollars on R&D and consistently miss the target with nearly every idea? At the very least I could respect their ability to stick to their guns, even if I didn't like the ideas. Now they just seem lost and floundering.

@yosoyju: Only correct decision, but yeah, it's because they fucked up in the first place by including it in every box.

Good discussions here btw!

lmao, are you serious with that banner image? people are overhyping these news.

Definitely agree with Alex's points. Yet another reason to mistrust Microsoft. I have no confidence in their statements or actions anymore. Ironically, the price drop makes me want to purchase an Xbox One even less.

NEWS!

i agree its a reason to be mistrusting of microsoft, but it does fully even the playing field between them and sony now.

I'm interested what indie developers, that are currently developing games that use the Kinect, think about this decision. I mean, it could severely decrease their sales if the future Xbox crowd is largely Kinectless, whereas when they started development, they thought every Xbox owner would have one.

The Xbone continues to be hilarious.

That was the longest and worst one sided game of chicken I've ever seen.

MS definitely has the opportunity now to turn things around with a strong lineup of exclusive titles. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth that they were outright deceitful about the 'requirement' of the Kinect and this promise of a fully integrated interative experience which apparently was all BS.

With no interest in the TV and original programming aspects of the One that they'll undoubtedly keep pushing to try to single themselves out as the end all be all of set top boxes, I won't be supporting them.

Despite what Iwata seems to think in the Nintendo camp, it will take a hell of a lot more than one game to change my mind.

Moar liek xBONED!

But seriously, on one hand it's almost disappointing that they're essentially giving up on the Kinect. The voice commands (when implemented correctly) were great to use. Sure the motion control wasn't up to snuff, but facial recognition and being able to yell "XBox, watch Game Show Network" were pretty neat.

Microsoft isn't giving up on the Kinect, they will probably relaunch it with VR once they have a bigger customer base.

@mrfluke: You mean it "helps" even the playing field? The PS4 still has superior hardware.

@stimpack: That's basically Microsoft in a nutshell. Another fine example being their Windows 8 backpedaling. There's nothing worth praising here.

I'm still probably not getting one without a Kinect, even though I hated the original (besides Child of Eden.)

I've seen the sentiment that this now kills any developer enthusiasm for the device. But honestly if there was any there to begin with you should have already have seen those game and announcements for more. Hell, you should have seen it with the first Kinect.

The only real bummer is Harmonix who arguably have been the only successful Kinect developers. Hope their kickstarter turns out okay.

Not really, you're still paying the same price for a technically inferior console.

@corvak: It's posted by Patrick, and there's only two people in the discussion. Seems pretty clear to me.

Drake's tweets right now are hilarious. Apparently Harmonix wasn't informed of this at all. Fuck Microsoft, it's just making me feel even worse I bought that thing.

Oh man. I just realized how much that invalidates Fantasia.

The giant bomb has been dropped.

Seems like as good an excuse as any to port Fantasia to PS4

Well, at least we can play games without wearing pants again.

That was a scary couple of months.

Unbelievably predictable.

Must say I am for these 'Sudden News Breaks' chats :D its sometimes a pain when something breaks and you have to wait till a show

Awesome news! Phil Spencer seems to have saved the X1! WOOT

To me, I feel like this is a mistake, plenty of people have traded their xbox ones in already, you can't move for the amount of pre owned consoles that are available in my local games stores. And they all sell for cheaper with a kinect included. With it still being so close to launch I struggle to see the benefit of buying new right now. If I was on the market to buy an Xbox one right now. Seeing this on a shelf would make me even more tempted to buy pre owned.

@spaghet3: Yea, I honestly feel terrible for them. Harmonix too with their upcoming Fantasia game. Fragmenting the console seems like a terrible choice when the entire point of Kinect was to be integral with the console itself, but it seems that's the only way they could deal with the losses with a price cut on the console.

This is getting embarrassing. If XBox can't stand by its initiatives and find ways to make them work, rather than backpedaling constantly, it's disappointing to developers and gamers alike.

Rather than pushing Kinect to be better, or incentivising developers to integrate Kinect in meaningful ways, they fold up their tent and give in. No matter how much more appealing the $400 price point looks to people who haven't bought into the XB One yet, moves like this just show how wishy washy they are as a company and how little confidence they have in their own devices and policies less than a year into the generation.

That's what I was waiting for! POWER TO THE PEOPLE I say. It is SO important that they sell the Xbox without that trash.

They WERE going to force players to use Kinnect once they had a big consumer base. They failed and now they will give us what we want. I will purchase an XBOX One now.

Hmmm I think this basically kills indie support for Kinect, why use resources for something that is no longer possible for anyone to play.

Is the XBox One F*** It Edition?

The DRM stuff was very consumer friendly, I wish it had stayed in place. I mean being able to share one copy of a game with your friends and family would have been great. Kinect has worked well for me, unlike a bunch of people, so I have no complaints. Really I just want games to play. If this is what it takes to get there.. sure.

Listening to this video with the volume up loud turned my Xbox One on... If that doesn't show why this is a good move, I don't know what could.

Good. It's taken a year, but this E3 the PS4 and Xbox One will be pretty similar instead of one seeming cool and the other seeming terrible and out of touch with what most people wanted from their game console.

Was this really that surprising? I feel like besides everyone talking about them making a version without the Kinect, the Bombcast has also mentioned that as a likely possibility in the past.

Aw, was hoping for a Jeff, Vinny, Drew and Brad couch discussion.

So, not including the Wii U, the X1 is pretty much the cheaper console in Canada now.

I'm still way more tempted to pick up a Wii U, it's selling like crap but Nintendo is still the king of first party exclusives.

Smart move but I still don't care about Microsoft first party stuff. And looks like the PS4 is going to be the third party system of choice this gen.

Stuff like this is why I will never buy a console at launch anymore.

"Sony was a stubborn ass company when the PS3 launched."

Yes. Yes it was.

Good on Microsoft for not being that stubborn this time around, but I'm really curious how they are going to make up the ground. Sony at least had exclusives and free online play to make up the ground (very slowly) over the 7th gen. This is going to be fascinating to watch.

the nuclear bomb picture is fitting , today MS took the nuclear option and dropped little boy , if they were at $379 it would have been Fat Man

Can't wait for E3 ! I bet Sony has some fun surprises in store... Shit's about to get CRAZY ! Love it.

I'm kinda happy that Kinect is now considered a mistake. Even though it's a cost to put it in the machine thing.

Though before you laugh at Microsoft, their company is doing more than fine, where Sony is running on fumes at this point. Xbox has always been a pet project for Microsoft, they'll do what they need to do to make it a success.

So huge.

Microsoft is not a good company. They were incredible for a while, and people praised it rightfully so. However, they have become lazy and unperceptive to what the customer really wants. This spans from gaming to operating system(s). Not JUST Windows 8/8.1, not just Xbox One.

Microsoft has created some good things, but they are no longer what they were in any respect. Sadly, we do not have a replacement.

I'm surprised how well the xbox one has sold considering how fucked up the whole process has been for them

This video turned my Xbox One on like 5 times from you guys saying the command.

NO BIG LOSS!