@professoress: the surface RT is only shitty in relative terms. It's a decent first go for a new product but it was never going to stand up to the ipad or the best android tablets. Especially for the same price. They didnt have enough developer support and couldn't convince people that it mattered.

Seems like everyone wants to compete in every category these days, but there was no real reason for Microsoft to even create the RT. more of an argument can be made for the pro version, but that thing isn't mind blowing either.

I'm sure the next iterations will be much better, but it will most likely die out in the next few years. The Zune was a better product, especially the last generation version. People just didnt care because there wasnt enough of a reason to.

The first kinect was a success in terms of sales, but it didnt live up to performance expectations. Hopefully this new one will be as good as they are saying it is. I personally don't mind it becoming a glorified Skype camera, but I would disappointed if we didnt see it work in the way it was originally intended to.

I'll get one next year, anyway. If I have to pay less that's FINE by me.

@syed117: I'm sorry dude but I disagree and I think it's a stretch to even call it a "decent first go".

I like Windows 8, I love Kinect, and if I were buying a next gen console it would probably still be the XBox One but I think the Surface RT was a huge mistake for MS. They dove into the tablet market with a nice looking, nice feeling and well thought out machine but it just simply doesn't perform good enough and I think it could end up haunting them in the tablet space for a while.

(...the keyboard is still pretty awesome though)

I was honestly more interested in the Xbox One before they announced it. Than after they did and the following mess/backtracking that they have done has had me feel like they were inept. I would have had more respect for them even if I had no interest with what they were selling, at least they wouldn't seem so laughable. They have really messed up this launch and it'll take a lot more than a few policy changes and a price drop to gain back any good will.

No thanks I'll stick with my PC. (I haven't even turned on my 360 for what 2 years now? That's gotta say something right there..)

@professoress: I think it was fine if you look at it as a first generation product. The first iphone was horrendous in terms of functionality. The first ipad was extremely slow as well. That thing is fine, but not for anywhere near $500 with everything else you could get for that amount of money.

It is sluggish and it felt like they spent way too time designing the outside and not enough time with the actual components. Again, I don't think it's a product worth owning.

Would I ever buy one? Maybe in a few years if the app selection is better and the OS is better optimized. I think live tiles and the way they have integrated xbox live is great but it's not enough.

Sometimes you just need a change. I still use and love my ipad, but I am sick of my iPhone 5. I regret almost every day that I didn't take it back in the 30 day return window. Everything hits a point of stagnation eventually. At least ios7 will change the look of this UI that I've been staring at for the past six years.

They can't. They should, but they can't. If they want to drive and push the Kinect technology, they need a large user base with functioning cameras. Otherwise it would likely sell less than the last Kinect, be adopted by relatively few, and mostly unconnected. Then no one would develop for it, because MS isn't exactly about first party development.

With the NSA stuff, the higher price, et cetera they really should, but it makes sense from a business perspective.

That price drop would be intelligent, though. Presales have to be incredibly low for them to be reacting the way they have been, and if that's true, a price drop would keep them competitive. The broader gaming market isn't pay that much attention to details about price, and finding it to be lower than expected in November would be a boon. Of course, to people who spend their free time checking out video game news, it would seem sketchy, but we're the very vocal minority.

http://www.insidegamingdaily.com/2013/07/23/xbox-one-to-release-in-kinect-less-bundle-in-2014/

This just poped up on my Twitter feed.

Oh man!. Is that too late? Sounds like E3 time. This made me laugh:

This approach to selling the Xbox One makes a lot of sense, primarily because early adopters will buy the system no matter what, with little regard for bundles or prices.

Agreed. That may have been the biggest problem. It was the best piece of packaging MS's had had in... probably ever? And when you pulled the device out of the package it felt so nice, weighty but in a good way, strong and the widescreen felt like such a huge upgrade over the iPad. Then I turned it on :( :P

I feel bad going so off topic but this thread ain't so on the rails that Imma feel that bad. The MS hate has become clownish. They're not the big, evil corporation out there, they're a big, possibly evil corporation out there like the rest of them. And like the rest of them, they make some stuff that's shit and they make some stuff that's good.

I'll wait and see which the XBox One (and the PS4) is first-hand and not base it on bungled press conferences, rumours or assumptions.

Get rid of the Kinect and drop 100$. I know they really want to push the Kinect but no one wants it.

If true, what the hell is Microsoft doing? Without the Kinect, what separates the Xbox One from the Ps4? A slightly different controller? Weaker processing speed? Forza?

I'm not ready for a next-gen console, and Microsoft doesn't look like they are either.

Exclusives. Its more or less this gen repeat.

To put things in perspective: Surface RT didn't even get to a million sales. Combine that with the total of all Win8 Tablets and Surface Pro and you get up to 2 million. Apple selling the same old iPad family hit 35 million in the same period while Thinkpads did as much.

There is no way to spin this but Surface is a pretty big, expensive mistake even as a first generation product. Even going by straight numbers, HP's ill fated TouchPad tablet did better and it lived less than 1 year.

Keep the price where it is. Microsoft made it clear that the xbox 360 will still be an option for the poor.

Edit: in fact, they should raise the price and include a second kinect in the package. Both kinects need to be connected and able to see each other in order to confirm that you're properly adhering the microsoft living room experience.

Kinect needs to stay. It is what makes the X1 unique and I think the features it will implement are interesting and exciting. I'm not talking about motion sensing in games, I'm talking about basically everything else. I would love it if we can use it instead of a headset.

only way they do that is if they add a kinect-less bundle, which they won't since the interface seems to require it.

console war fighters and tech elitists all up in this bitchhh,

personally the price wasnt the breaking point for me and the whole phobia with the kinect watching you (which i get that), it was those old policies. now that those are gone (and they have outright come out and basically said "we fucked up"), i just wanna see better games,

halo 4 made me say fuck you to halo, so i could care less for halo 5(which is an extreme bummer, as halo used to be the thing that made me say fuck everything getting the system for halo)., and there's very good chance titanfall is a timed exclusive or the possible sequel will go multiplatform,

the ps4's games are just more appealing to me especially with the ps4 courting indies (their obnoxious pretentious personalities aside, they do make diverse games) , and the promise of internet remote play with the vita could be killer.

This will only happen if Sony outsells them by a lot. Unless they already have precise pre-order numbers from both and already know they're losing by a wide margin they wouldn't change the price right away. This is just not something Microsoft does. Look at the 360. If you want the model that matters, the one with the big hard drive, that thing has been 300$ for 4 years now. Sure they redesigned it and have increase the hard drive capacity but the price hasn't changed in 4 years. 300$ for an 8 year old console is just stupid.

But you felt it important that everybody on this thread know how you felt. Well I'm happy for you, I don't know about the others here big boy!

So this price cut....what would they have to remove (if anything) to compete with sony? I've never played with a kinect and nevermind a kinect 2.0 but if they were really set on making it non-optional then it would be a shame to lose it. Not all peripherals work out but the ones that do can be game changing, so why be so close minded about it? Especially when shit hasn't been released yet.

Price gap is already just 50€ in Finland (PS4 449€ / XONE 499€), dead even at launch?

im legitimately interested in how its going to work. If it works the way the say it does, i wouldnt mind getting it to see how that stuff will be implemented in the future. If it turns out to be kinda crappy, which it could, then im glad they are giving an option later on for the x1 to be sold without it. Seems the smart way to go. Give people options

Just dropping some jewels of mad wisdom to change yo mind son.

To get back on topic, the rumor states that they are talking to channel partners which probably means telecom operators like Verizon and Orange. So essentially this is the same story we've been hearing for a year now. Microsoft will probably subsidize the price through broadband plans after the initial production batch has been sold out, so probably early spring or even E3.

If true, they'll be using that time to do some serious retooling of the user interface, because they've been flat-out saying that Kinect is MANDATORY to the way that system works.

New X1 rumor every week? All sound like hopeful fan-boy wishlist? This close to release? Fake.

Considering they made up a bunch of stuff about how the DRM was going to be mandatory then why not make a bunch of other stuff that is going to be mandatory too?

Microsoft keeps using "mandatory" but I don't think they know what it means.

In the Free USA you pay the government to spy on YOU.

What is a tossweasel?

@the_laughing_man said:

@deranged said:

@the_laughing_man said:

NOTHING BLEW UP IN THE LAST 5 SECONDS I AM BORED!

*cough*

When Kinect first came out I also thought it stupid. And back then it was. It was aimed big time at kids and the E3 stuff was stupid (SKITTLES)

But it started to grow and now it seems quite cool. I might not use it but the idea of being able to track where your eyes look might be cool or being able to have head tracking would be awesome.

Again, this post is great when thinking about your avatar. @the_laughing_man

My local Urban Dictionary told me:

Someone who acts like a jerk. The kind of person who would wipe his spaff-stained hands on your muffin while you go for a jimmy.

Someone who dinged your car and didn't leave a note - tossweasel

Someone who gives your kids loads of sugary fizzy drinks before bedtime - tossweasel

Someone who aspires to act like Dick Cheney - tossweasel

@blu3v3nom07: Okay, but even when I went to UrbanDictionary, it didnt' seem like the definitions for Jimmy matched that usage. At least up to the point where someone arbitrarily uses a person's name to mean that they are good in bed. That's when you know you've reached the point where UrbanDictionary gets worthless.

To think that the Kinect 2.0 won't be another niche peripheral JUST because it is mandatory on the Xbox One is very far fetched. 90% of the games on current consoles and announced future consoles are cross platform games. Developers develop games for both systems in mind, and therefore, they will not throw in a major gaming component that needs these system exclusive devices (ie. Kinect or touchpad). The functionality of these devices will be arbitrary and minimal at best on most games. I am not saying the Kinect is a shitty device. It has it's place in gaming, and I personally love it for family game nights, but let's get real, it isn't the second coming of a video game revolution.

You may not want to say it but I will then: Kinect is as useful as those DDR dance pads and plastic guitars we got out of those music games. They really make those specific experiences in those specific games but none of it is enough for an entire platform. We would laugh at the idea of controlling a 360 or PS3 with a dance pad but we are supposed to take Microsoft seriously when they babble on about Kinect?

I think everyone is forgetting that it's a camera and a voice recognition system.

This again comes back to how well it will work. People always say they don't want to talk to their TVs or phones and I think siri is a joke, but I always use voice to text while im driving. If they can get the voice recognition to work consistently, it would definitely be something worth using.

Even if it's not for games, using voice commands to flip channels, search netflix or just about anything else on a system level. It drops the barrier to entry so much when people don't have to interact with the controller. That thing might not be intimidating to us, but it is to a lot of people who aren't familiar.

People complain that microsoft is making a media box for your living room and sony is making a machine for gamers. I don't really understand that argument because sony spent the first third of their E3 press conference talking about nothing but media. They both want their boxes to do everything, Microsoft is just doing a better job on the media side and they have for an entire generation. I don't know if it will pay off or not, but they are trying to make a console that everyone can use. Not just the stereotypical single male demographic.

I might have been on the other side of this when I was younger, but now I care about more than graphics. Been sitting around with a controller in my hand for more than 25 years, it would be nice to interact with the box in a different way. If it doesn't work, guess what? I still have the controller.

This is why I want to live in the UK.

Nah I'd much prefer we keep gamers like you away from console's user base. Personally I want a next-gen system with next gen controls. You likely just want updated graphics. There's plenty of other options for you.

It's not happening.

There is nothing "nex-gen" about kinect, nothing at all.

Other than speech and gesture recognition....the two most common methods of communication between human beings in the world finally making their way to controlling video games.

Pushing a button to make a device do something has been around for half a century. It's time to move forward.

When I pre-ordered the PS4 I was also making a statement to Microsoft that I didn't like the stuff they were doing. At this point going back on it will send the wrong message.

Rumors are rumors and should be treated as such. Don't see this one happening at all.

Here's my cynical comment:

PS4 been in development for 5 years... Xbox One been in development for 1 month.

Anyways, its still just a rumor.

Major Nelson says the rumor is bogus.

http://www.reddit.com/r/xboxone/comments/1jcrbb/microsoft_will_reintroduce_the_xbox_one_at_press/cbdlts3

I'd argue that Kinect is the only potential next-gen thing being offered by either console. Everything else is simply this-gen PC in console form, only with higher software prices.

There's going to be a lot of crow eating 5 years from now when there will be multiple million sellers that won't even be possible without it and every core game is going to be heavily extended by voice recognition and gesture. It's already happening in launch games.

Kinect's the new analog stick and then some.

Why the fug would you prefer interrupting your gameplay and scrolling through a d-pad menu to give friendly A.I. a few basic commands like in squad shooters such as Rainbow Six versus just simply telling them what to do and actually have the ability to co-operate with them as you would with friends in an online game? Just about any video game from tactical squad shooters, to JRPG that has multiple party members to Halo will play so much better with voice recognition co-op.

Seriously, some gamers have 0 vision.

@alexglass: Voice recognition in games isn't new and perfectly achievable without the Kinect. This is why I always laughed when a game was marketed as "better with Kinect" when it only featured voice commands. It could be done on PS3 and PS4, considering it was done on PS2 and earlier.

You don't need a $100 motion camera to add voice commands to a game.

Right but to play video games that take advantage of this, apparently we do since that's the only serious option currently being offered.

Also, Kinect does both, voice commands and gesture recognition...but you already knew that.

@alexglass: Probably because the majority of gamers wouldn't use voice commands even if they were there. The only use I had for Kinect's voice commands in-game was the quick save option in Skyrim, only because the option wasn't available otherwise. I didn't find that it worked well at all in games like Mass Effect.

We have lived with Kinect for almost 3 years and I still can not visualize a good way to add motion/gesture controls into a game that isn't a mini game collection. It just seems like a gimmick that won't be used any better than Kinect already was this generation, everyone having one or not.

It seems to me Microsoft is trying way to hard now to backtrack on what they came out with. The Xbox One is NOT the same console we saw at E3. They are desperately hoping consumers with completely forget what they showed off earlier this year. Its just sad how Microsoft has tried to please the customer and not stick with their plan It seems to me atm they are now struggling at what direction they want to go with the Xbox One.

Despite this, I have preordered a Xbox One only to hope to make a little profit during the holidays.

@alexglass: Give me 3 examples of mechanics that are only achievable by using Kinect and makes up for its 100$ price, go!