I am finally caving in after a year. I love my Wii U, but after watching Alexis and Drew marathon HALO and the price cut I am picking one up. The only question I have is to go Kinetic or not. I had a 360 but never purchased the Kinetic. As someone who spends most of their time in a wheelchair I didn't feel that I could get much use out of that thing. With the new xbox the voice controls sound impressive, but is it really worth the extra cost? At this point most likely picking up the Sunset Overdrive bundle.

I like having the Kinect for the voice commands alone.
So much so that I almost say Xbox On when I want to turn other TVs on.
Could always just get the Overdrive bundle and get a Kinect later if you're not sure about it.
I do hope devs make more use out of it even if it is something as simple as voice commands/detection or motion. (like the Alien hearnig you or getting carded in Fifa for swearing)

@franknelson: I have not had my Kinect hooked up since week one (And I got it on launch night). I never found the voice commands useful enough to overpower my annoyance of the Xbox listening and reacting to everything that I say. Just my two cents.

First off, congrats. X1's are awesome. And yes, spring for the Kinect. Voice controls are worth it. Not having to hunt for the remote or get up to go get it to do small things like adjust volume, pause, mute, or change inputs is great, and having the ability to switch between games/netflix/TV, etc. by simply saying "xbox, go to ____" is fantastic. I also love "xbox, record that". The snap functionality is really handy as well. I enjoy the Kinect because I'm just lazy, but for someone who actually has limited mobility, the voice control would likely be useful on an entirely different level.

Tha'ts awesome! Halo MCC is gonna be crazy good. I'm actually pretty jealous you're getting Sunset out of it for free. I'm simply to tight on budget already getting just a bunch of other games now as it is. Anyway, congrats! Supposedly they're maybe announcing Banjo-Kazooie next E3, so that'd be pretty cool to start out a new year with. :D

Congrats. I'm getting mine as soon as the price drop goes into effect. I'm on the fence about which bundle to get. The CoD bundle is appealing because 1TB and I'm buying that game anyway. But, ya know... it's ugly. Probably going with the Sunset Overdrive bundle (which is sold out everywhere even before the price drop starts).

@thatonedudenick said:

I honestly thought about getting the CoD bundle as well since you get the 1TB HDD because it seems that XBox One and PS4 games appear to be massive and must install on the drive. I got a cheap 320GB for my Wii U and I do not believe I will fill it up by the end its life cycle ends. I am getting Sunset Overdrive anyway but the shallow reason why I might be going with that bundle is because of the white console/controller to be honest. I guess I need to do some research first though.

The 1 TB hard drive is not that big of a deal now that the console supports external hard drives, but yeah, the digital downloads are huge. Even the non-digital Halo:MCC version comes with a 20 GB download, which is nuts. I'm already at just under half of the space on the hard drive, FWIW.

True. I didn't think of that. Looks like now I'm playing the waiting game for the Sunset Overdrive bundle. My local GameStop has it in "low stock", hopefully they still do on the 2nd when it's $349. Not sure if I can place a pre-order on something they already have in stock. :P

Also, about the Kinect. I don't care about it. I'm sure I'll end up with one eventually, but I've never had the voice commands so I won't miss the option. I messed with the voice commands on my PS4 and it didn't really add to the experience.

@franknelson: I don't have a Kinect and I don't care for one. The TV input is so laggy and crappy compared to direct-to-TV that I don't want to use my Xbox for TV stuff and thus, the only real reason for voice commands in my opinion is irrelevant. I wouldn't mess with it. Also, with the suspend feature that works as well as you could hope, it's not that hard to get into your game. I literally have to press two buttons to get back into my game (the Xbox button on the controller to turn on the console, then A to select the game from suspend). I have never wished I had the voice stuff.

For storage, @notnert427 nailed it. Sunset is 23 GB to download, and Master Chief Collection is like 45GB plus a 20GB patch, so 65GB altogether. And you can't pick and choose which games from the collection you want. It's all or none. And Wolfenstein was at or over 40GB, IIRC. So yeah, I'd either buy an external hard drive or get the COD bundle.

Yeah, that price cut is good selling point. If the price dropped earlier this month I would have picked one up instead of a PS4. It's all good though, I'm sure I'll get another opportunity in time.

I use Kinect everyday for voice stuff...I really like it. would really miss it if I didn't have it now that I've messed around with it.

I find the Kinect extremely useful when using the voice controls. If you didn't use the original Kinect, I don't think you will miss the new one, or it's features. In your case, I would save the money, and get the bundle. You definitely will get more value for less, than getting the Kinect bundle. Keep this in mind, some retailers might already be discounting the Xbox One.

Yeah, having Kinect from day one I've gotten used to using it. They've done a good job of making changes for those without Kinect but I'd still say with Kinect is the better experience, especially if you want to control other devices in your A/V setup.

Yo add me if you want my GT: dHAWXb

I barely use my kinect and I'm perfectly okay with it. There's no kinect games I'm planning on getting, like ever, so I don't really see the point of getting one. Save your kinect cash and buy a few games or maybe a bigger drive.

@franknelson: congrats! its a good time to buy an xbox one. make sure to buy D4.

Yeah. Pass on Kinect, unless it comes in the bundle.

The Xbox One is truly an underappreciated device right now. They've made substantial changes to the UI and functionality since launch. The social systems on the platform are second to none. Its selection of games continues to hum with variety.

Really happy you're getting one!

So far, I'm liking it as a system. It's surprisingly well designed.

I'll put out feelers to get a second hand connect locally, maybe.

Forget about Kinect unless you like talking to yourself. I picked up a XBOX One a few months back when it was released over here in Japan. I when for the set without Kinect as I never used it on my 360. Using an Xbox One without Kinect is perfectly fine and if you do want to be different you could always use smart glass on your phone or tablet to control all the menus, write messages and other stuff.

Game wise, well there's a lot to get just in the last few months alone. Within the last few weeks I've picked up Walking Dead Seasons 1 & 2, Sunset Overdrive, Shadow of Mordor, Forza Horizon 2 and Lego the Movie (for my son).