Microsoft Dropping Kinect Requirement From Xbox One

@humanity: Yeah, but only out of desperation after getting every... single... thing... completely wrong. But yes, it's nice to see them capitulating to the market, finally.

You mean kind of like the PS3's chances a year into its life cycle? People are too quick to judge or form an opinion. Microsoft is too, apparently. Everything they've done so far has been rash and a complete 180 on their initial project. If anything, the reason the XB1 wouldn't survive is because they themselves would strip it to death.

huh.... they need a video to explain this..... ooookay.

How so?

And yes, that is a genuine question.

Sunk on the Blunk.

Yeah, they compromised their vision that almost everyone hated.There's something to be said about sticking to your guns but if almost everyone hates you for it (like what happened with the DRM stuff) then maybe you should consider changing your ways because it's possible that they hate this for a good reason (otherwise you get something like Sony being really stubborn with the PS3 and taking years to make changes and catch up). I remember when the DRM stuff was reversed, tons of people were championing it as a moment when people spoke with their wallet and were able to enact positive change. Now all I hear is people complaining about them backpedaling and changing stuff that most of you were never fans of to begin with. I'd rather they change their policies to help consumers then stick to these policies that most people don't want.

Also, developers can still work on trying to do innovative stuff with the Kinect. Regardless of whether or not the Kinect is mandatory, you still have to convince consumers to pay extra money for it. Don't assume that consumers are idiots that are willing to throw away an extra $100 up front for no reason.

@humanity: The other perspective is they are compromising their vision to mitigate the loss of their market share. Their studios no longer have complete freedom to experiment with how the Kinect can compliment games. We survived the gimmick phase where features were bolted on to push add-on units. That goes away when peripherals become standard.

Now it's going to come back. Better with Kinect is still a threat. :/

This past year makes Microsoft look like the most consumer friendly company you've ever seen.

I mean they are literally bending over backwards to give people what they want - kind of unprecedented in the gaming industry.

So they dropped the only thing that differentiated the console from their competitors? Why would the consumer choose an Xbone when they can get a console (PS4) that is significantly more powerful for the same price?

Also lol at MS shitting all over the early adopters. I would never trust a product from MS again if I were one of them.

I may be the minority here but...I like using the Kinect on my X1. The voice function in Netflix alone makes things a lot easier if you've got stuff to attend to but want to make a selection for something fairly quickly.

I won't say it's prefect but, come on, we've got people speaking so many different pitches of each language that these things are never going to be perfect anyway. Not trying to excuse the Kinect, it certainly has problems, but at this point I would be pissed if I couldn't use my voice to control the system anymore.

Oh Microsoft, dear old sweet Microsoft.

ahhaha.....MS is shittin all over the customers

At this point Microsoft should sell Xbox, at least to let the public give Xbox a second chance and see if the idiots who fucked this up were on the Microsoft side or the Xbox side. Right now I'd rather buy a bunch of original Xboxs than buy an Xbox One, simply because I don't trust Microsoft one bit.

Well, that didn't take long.

Guess their last bet is going strong with the cloud computing stuff and do it a lot better than the competition.

It seems MS botched almost everything with this console launch.

I'm not in the position to get a new console but it will be a PS4 when I do. Xbox has been my primary console since ms jumped in the console market. After I got a PS3 slim I slowly changed my preference for the PS. The xbox interface became so bloated with ads and that endless moving around just get to what I wanted to do. In time a all in one media/games device might suit me but not at this time. My Apple TV does everything else I need. I have no desire to play motion games.

MS lost me as a user. Titanfall was the only thing I wanted the xbox one for, once TF2 is on the PS4 then that problem is solved.

I like this, kinect is useless in most cases, and like others have found out, voice commands are the only thing people are using it for, and this could have been done with a microphone on the controller instead a separate device, that very few games want to use.

Now only if Microsoft could release an Xbox One without the HDMI passthrough for $299, that would be the perfect buy for me. I don't have cable boxes, I don't need it, I just want a machine that plays games.

Official response just in from Patrick Klepek, and this is a direct quote, "No."

Now if they would only announce that they are putting GDDR5 RAM in there and a 50% better video card to put it on par with the PS4. I'd still get the PS4. It was just announced that another game is running at lower resolution on XBOX one. Watch Dogs is 792p compared to 900p on PS4. Face it, Xbox One is slower.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

Ultimately, this is probably a good decision for them. And I have hopes for Phil Spencer's vision for Xbox.

But the messaging and positioning for the Xbox One is so hypocritical and disjointed and noncommittal at this point, and while I continue to enjoy my 360, my eyes are still firmly set on the PS4 as my next console of choice. MS needs to earn my trust back big time if they want my business beyond the 360.

@spiritof: Oh yeah It's all Microsoft's fault, I even think their DRM could have been cool if they'd have talked about the potential positives. Its like the opposite of Apple who have average products but great marketing.

@masterrain: I understand the want and need for innovation, and I think if Microsoft hadn't tried to slip their DRM scheme past everyone before launch, the Xbox One would be sitting much better than it is today, but they didn't, and its cost them dearly. After that, and coming out $100 more than the competitor, every concession and explanation they've made has made them look like they're scrambling and confused. I don't know if it's the audience rejecting innovation as much as the audience wanting Microsoft to sleep in the bed they've made.

Again, I think Microsoft could have sold the importance of The Kinect pack-in (or even eaten the cost and announced a price cut), but the DRM wool they tried to pull over everyone's eyes became an albatross that they still haven't been able to shake.

@spiritof: Yes MS took the risk, what I'm saying is people should appreciate that more. They bet on sci-fi Kinect and TV stuff, and at the moment it looks like it's failed, however I don't understand why people are happy. What did Sony do? "Its just like a PS3 but more powerful and even more like a PC." That's the most safe, vanilla strategy possible. If everyone did that the console market would be fucking boring.

I'm not mad that people are saying MS are failing, which so far they are, but I think we should encourage more risks, otherwise how will we ever get holograms and hoverboards? Personally I think they are ahead of their time but who am I?

TL;DR We should be sad when cool technology fails, not celebrate its demise.

So, I'm confused, Microsoft didn't take a risk with the Xbox One? Or they did take a risk with Xbox One? Because from where I stand, they did take the risk, and they failed. They misjudged the market, the market spoke, and the market said "no". Not all risk is rewarded. It wouldn't be called risk if it were.

Someone get the Microsoft PR department some WD-40 all that back-pedaling has made that chain squeaky.

They haven't even released in all regions yet and they are already making drastic changes to their SKUs. Things must be worse than they look.

Oh yeah, that hot QR code scanning.

Cool. Now no 3rd party developer will ever support Kinect again. Thanks for the $100 doorstop, Microsoft. PS: Fuck you and your shitty console I overpaid for.

@masterrain: Except you're sorta making it sound like Microsoft was some kind of underdog with a one in million idea that just didn't get any traction because the industry doesn't want any innovation, and that's far from the truth.

Microsoft had an idea that they sold to the public based on hype and unrealistic demos and once the hype around it died off, people started realizing that it was a faulty peripheral that barely worked. So instead of saying hey lets figure out ways to get people actually interested in this thing so they'll buy it, they just said, eh lets pack it in here, and make consumers front the bill for it, and of course, people responded with their wallets.

Pocketnow music!

Wow, gotta love competition! They should do a white or coloured one to distinguish the styles though.

The longer your system is out, the less features it should come standard with, makes sense. It worked for PS3 and it's going to work with xbox one......Oh wait. I guess kinect is going to become worthless again, why code for something most users wont have?

@plague102: wow. Did you come to this conclusion all by yourself?

Yeah I'm not sure announcing a lower price model in 1 month is going to help them move units. If anything, I'd bet May 2014 will be the slowest month yet for XBOne sales. They should have just announced a price drop today, effective immediately to $399, and then release the Kinect-less SKU in June. That would probably help them move a lot of units in the short term as it makes a $399 XBOne with a Kinect (and maybe Titanfall) look like a pretty great deal, even if the Kinect is now borderline worthless.

Thank you for saying what I didn't want to have to type out myself.

I still think that the key point going into E3 with all this is "what about the games?". Be they Kinect games, or non-kinect games, what matters in terms of driving Microsoft's console forward is whether the games are good. We don't know if this is the case yet because the generation is still new and games aren't here in any great number yet (which is also true of the PS4).

The Xbox 360 launched in Nov 2005. 6 months later, there were approximately 60 game releases with Oblivion, GRAW, Burnout, Fight Night, and Geometry Wars among the leading titles.

The Xbox one launched in Nov 2014. 6 months later, there have been approximately 45 game releases with Rayman Legends, Titanfall, Tomb Raider, DR3, and Child of Light leading. Most notably of the stand out titles this time around, quite a few of them are also out on the 360. This wasn't the case with the Xbox last time.

All in all this feels like a sluggish start. Microsoft clearly need to build momentum and to do so very quickly. Will cutting the Kinect from the basic edition help them to be more competitive? In the long-term, it probably will. In the short term, all that matters is the games that are coming out in the next quarter and whether they are good enough to sell more Xbox Ones and get that install base up.

I have sympathy for developers with Kinect games in development who are concerned about how this is going to shake out for them but if their product is good enough then there is still going to be a sizeable market to shoot for. That said, ultimately, if Kinect is a piece of hardware that is going to be broadly used in gaming in the long term then it is now up to the developers to make games that are good enough to make people want to purchase a Kinect. This is ultimately a better situation for consumers than was previously the case.

Indeed. Nothing shocking here.

Man I called this so long ago I was starting to think I might've actually been wrong, once. It's a really weird move at this point, I was already kinda decided on the ps4 but was coming around on the XO and the new kinect. Now that they're not backing up their kinect as hard anymore I'm not sure if I'm still interested. Dunno man, I guess they did the research and this was the right move ... It's a weird one, though.

I wish I could justify a $400 console purchase with 2 games

Rich people I tells ya

Sorry Microsoft. Too little too late. I'm getting a PS4 for Destiny and Beast Souls. I don't know who was waiting for a Kinectless Xbox, but I'm sure that the people who were excited about it are now pissed that developers are going to drop it like a bad habit.|

Next console cycle (if there is a next one) do a little market research on the people who actually play games instead of whatever it was that you did to lead you to the terrible decisions of the xbox launch last year.

and, predictably, the comments for this video are garbage

Thing shouldn't have been in the box to start with. Either way, I still have no desire to own a Xbox One. In a couple years if they have enough exclusives I want to play on it, then I might grab one, though.

Yeah, I just wrote a similar thing elsewhere. I'm a PC gamer so I don't have a dog in this fight, but Microsoft are coming across as really desperate and confused for the past year. It does not instill consumer confidence.

Sony on the other hand have been clear and focused from day one.

I'm a 20+ year long PC exclusive gamer, and let me tell you: PC gaming is always more expensive if you want to play modern games. That's just the truth of it, no matter what any overly defensive brother of mine might say about the platform. It's a premium priced, premium platform, full stop.

That said, the Xbone and PS4 aren't really all that crazy advanced. PC versions already on day one surpass the PS4 version, which wasn't always the case in previous console eras. A relatively low cost PC today could probably compete with the PS4 for a long time, and any well-built machine should surpass the PS4 for years to come.

Can you build a PC for $399 that can play games at the quality level a PS4 will over the next 5ish years? Seriously asking...when I've looked, seemed like a decent video card was about 300 itself, but I'm no expert.

Now everybody can experience how cumbersome that interface is without voice commands. Fantastic.

1. Everyone knew this had to happen.

2. Microsoft was the only thing saying it was never going to happen.

@herbiebug: Man its Sony's 4 year run encapsulated into 1.5 years