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Xbox One without ?irrelevant? Kinect coming 2015, says Pachter

 

Monday, 10th March 2014 05:34 GMT By Brenna Hillier

 

Industry analyst Michael Pachter believes Microsoft will stop bundling Kinect with the Xbox One sometime next year ? probably resulting in a price drop.

 

xbox_one_kinect.jpg

Speaking in his weekly webshow BonusRound, Pachter said that Kinect was ?Don Mattrick?s favorite child?, but the executive?s departure for Zynga means there?s nobody left at Microsoft to champion the device

?Don isn?t there anymore. You have a new boss over the Xbox division, who has no skin in the Kinect game,? he said.

 

?Sure they?re gonna unbundle. Not in 2014. They will not change the SKU that dramatically in the first full year. It?s a 2015 event.

 

?Just the way they introduced the 4GB Xbox after a couple years, they?ll bring one out and it?ll be something that?ll look a little dumbed down. I think they?ll actually pick the core model and put a 2TB hard drive in it, and then the dumbed down one will have a 500GB hard drive, and it?ll have no Kinect, and it?ll be $400.?

 

The Kinect is largely held responsible for the $100 between the Xbox One and cheaper PlayStation 4; so far, the PS4 seems to be outselling Microsoft?s offering, although both consoles are going gangbusters. Pachter isn?t convinced a price cut can come soon enough to win back the lead.

 

?The problem is that if by spring ?15 they cut the price to $400, Sony goes $349 for ours/ Sony right now is in a position to stay ahead of them, and this is what happened with the PS2. PS2 kept taking share by cutting price,? the analyst said.

 

?I think this is a price game. I think unbundling Kinect is the smartest way to get competitive right away.?

 

As for why this hasn?t happened already, Pachter said Mattrick pushed for Kinect as standard because he ?thought it was gonna change the world?.

 

?He believed it a mechanism to cross sell Skype and to cross sell cable access and doing other things,? Pachter said.

 

In the interim, though, Microsoft realised that smartphone and tablet integration is so high that it can build all those features into SmartGlass instead.

 

?I think the overlap of Xbox One households and smartphones and tablets households is probably a hundred percent. I think that Kinect has become almost irrelevant,? he added.

 

?I think the voice command is really cool, but you can use your tablet.?

 

Thanks, DualShockers.

 

http://www.vg247.com/2014/03/10/xbox-one-without-irrelevant-kinect-coming-2015-says-pachter/

http://www.dualshockers.com/2014/03/09/kinect-is-irrelevant-xbox-one-will-get-a-price-cut-but-sony-is-in-position-to-stay-ahead-according-to-pachter/

 

Please post on topic rather than stereotypical blanket statements about analysts. Offer discussion if you're going to hit the reply button.

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Kinect is part of the Xbox One experience. If they unbundle Kinect, they might as well just unbundle the controllers, unbundle the power cord, unbundle the HDMI cord, and maybe even unbundle the blu-ray player.

 

Kinect is here to stay, and that is great news for gamers. We will retain developer support. 

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Kinect is part of the Xbox One experience. If they unbundle Kinect, they might as well just unbundle the controllers, unbundle the power cord, unbundle the HDMI cord, and maybe even unbundle the blu-ray player.

 

Kinect is here to stay, and that is great news for gamers. We will retain developer support. 

Truth be told they haven't shown how it's a fundamental part of the Xbox One experience yet.  All of the things that Kinect does right now could be done by something else.  They still need that one killer app, Kinect's Wii Sports if you will.

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well if pachter says so, then MS is more behind the kinect than ever and this will never happen :)

 

As it is, it would be a big mistake for MS to release a non kinect xbox. even if they do the purely media centered one, it would almost have to have kinect. 

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Some people i swear..... how long is it going to take for your butt to stop hurting from the kinect and 499 price tag....     Its obviously still selling quite well at 499 with kinect.  Its very much so part of the system and part of MS overall vision for the product and not going anywhere.   I mean dang its only been a few months. Not to mention as far as I have heard they have certain multiyear contracts with with various chip manufactures and literally can NOT remove it without breaching them for a few years even if they wanted to. They went all in with kinect and i applaud them for it

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Truth be told they haven't shown how it's a fundamental part of the Xbox One experience yet.  All of the things that Kinect does right now could be done by something else.  They still need that one killer app, Kinect's Wii Sports if you will.

They have shown how its a fundamental part of the Xbox One experience from day one. All the things ANYTHING does right now could be done by something else.

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I think Microsoft will eventually sell an Xbox One version without Kinect, but he's basing this on nothing but his own conjecture. Microsoft will probably want some solutions to problems the console would face by not having Kinect instead of just stripping the console of them.

 

Pachter says all the features are capable with a SmartGlass app, which is absolutely stupid. If you're only considering Kinect for UI navigation, then sure, but it also controls the TV integration. "Xbox, record that" is also going to be a big feature of the console going forward -- will they just strip that from a non-Kinect SKU? Seems doubtful.

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From last month:

 

 

 

?[Kinect is] integral to the Xbox One experience"..."[A Kinect-less Xbox One] is not in our plans at all," 

"As we've said from the very beginning, we believe Kinect is an absolutely integral part of the Xbox One experience." 

"Look at all the thousands and thousands of game clips that have been posted by gamers to Upload Studio, of their gaming highlights, captured by speaking the words 'Xbox record that', which has already become part of Xbox vocabulary," 

"It's a really great example of how Kinect makes the experience on Xbox One even better."

 

And from before:

 

http://www.nowgamer.com/news/2041148/we_100_believe_in_kinect_says_microsoft.html

 

 

 

"We still believe in Kinect," said Albert Penello, lead planner for Xbox One, posting on NeoGAF. "We aren?t interested in splitting the development base. The more demos I?ve seen, the more I?ve used it ? the more impressed I am. The team feels strongly about Kinect, and I hope we?re able to prove that when you use it."
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MS will just take a hit on each unit and drop the price and keep the Kinect in if they have to.  As far as how it's useful or not, there's the basics, voice control of everything, auto login when it sees you, the ability for developers to take advantage of it because they know people have it.  Project Spark uses it for motion capture when creating a game, how is that not a big feature to have? 

 

While it would've been better to have at least one Kinect game ready for launch it's not going to take long till those games come.

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I'll do one better and say that MS will do a price cut for holiday 2014, $50 at least, $449 with Kinect still in.  Or if they want to be more aggressive they'll just go ahead and cut it down to $399 and keep Kinect in, take the initial hit and make it up on the software side as always.

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in my opinion, ms should try everything possible to make sure that kinect won't be unbundled.  

it's what makes the x1 unique.  

people pick up the console expecting they can do what people do in the x1 ads, ex: "xbox, broadcast," or "xbox, record that." 

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It'll come at some point, MS will just hold off for as long as possible to saturate the market with as many Kinect 2 units as possible.

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Clearly,  MS tried very very very hard at Kinect 2 and it just did not go the way they wanted... it is just not adopted widely yet, and is now a premium bundle most people deem irrelivant.

 

The biggest game Xbox One has this year. Titanfall,  is not supporting Kinect...  making the argument to mandatory bundle the accessory, to guarantee developer support from start, obsolete.

 

Lowering the price of the console will do more for MS balance sheets now.   

 

Once (and If) they have a Kinect blockbuster, they can push the Kinect sales again!

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I know we are only suppose to reply if we want to discuss bundling Kinect (not exactly a new topic), but I have to say first that this article is not based on any rumors or leaks of info, its just an analyst speculating right?

Pachter recently speculated that PlayStation Now was a joke, something that was also not based on any new leaks or rumors, just his opinion.

So lets discuss the idea of bundling Kinect or not again.

I'll just keep it brief since it feels like I have already said too much about this in other threads here.

If MS sees sales dropping off more then they are happy with, then they must evaluate all possibilities for turning that around, including dropping Kinect. They have to weigh the value of Kinect to the platform as a whole (not just for gaming, but in all of the 'small' features that exist due to the inclusion of Kinect) and its value as a differentiators against the competition.

I'm not going to try and tell MS what the answer to those things are, plenty of people around the internet love to do that, but MS has to look at all the data that we don't have and decide must change for the good of the platform.

If they were ready to cut it loose, I suppose waiting till next year makes sense. I still think they are more likely to just eat the loss from a price cut without dropping anything, but we will see.

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The only issue Kinect has right now is a total lack of content that uses it. I think it's shocking that MS didn't have a Kinect game or two available at launch. Hell, they really should've re-mastered Kinect Adventures and the first Kinect Sports. Both are excellent games and are great fun at parties. Not having them this Christmas since I bought an Xbox One was a shame.

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It'll come at some point, MS will just hold off for as long as possible to saturate the market with as many Kinect 2 units as possible.

I agree, if they are going to drop Kinect support, they will wait as long as possible in order to cut down the losses on investment.

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I agree with pachter for once(shocking indeed). It's only a matter of time till kinect gets the boot. Especially if the xbone continues to lag heavily behind the ps4 in sales.

 

Kinect is part of the Xbox One experience. If they unbundle Kinect, they might as well just unbundle the controllers, unbundle the power cord, unbundle the HDMI cord, and maybe even unbundle the blu-ray player.

 

Kinect is here to stay, and that is great news for gamers. We will retain developer support. 

 

It's not vital to the use of the console at all, where as a controller or power cord is. And bundling it in doesn't mean developers are going to go out of there way to shoehorn in the very limited things kinect can do.

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It's not vital to the use of the console at all, where as a controller or power cord is. And bundling it in doesn't mean developers are going to go out of there way to shoehorn in the very limited things kinect can do.

You have to admit though, it will remove any possibility of differentiating themselves. I have a feeling that getting rid of Kinect will be followed by other issues that few want to talk about.

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Microsoft really has to demonstrate the value of Kinect and do so soon or else it should be removed to allow the price of the console to be lowered. At the moment the XB1 underperforms the PS4 and costs substantially more, which has definitely hurt it. If Microsoft can take advantage of it then that could help differentiate the XB1 in the marketplace and reward fans but I haven't seen it used for anything more than gimmicks.

 

The same is true of the Wii U and it's tablet controller, which massively increased the cost of the console and which developers only used for gimmicks.

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I agree, if they are going to drop Kinect support, they will wait as long as possible in order to cut down the losses on investment.

 

Or, they could just make some more games that take advantage of it better. I really like having the Kinect, but there isn't much going on for it in gaming right now.

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Microsoft really has to demonstrate the value of Kinect and do so soon or else it should be removed to allow the price of the console to be lowered. At the moment the XB1 underperforms the PS4 and costs substantially more, which has definitely hurt it. If Microsoft can take advantage of it then that could help differentiate the XB1 in the marketplace and reward fans but I haven't seen it used for anything more than gimmicks.

 

The same is true of the Wii U and it's tablet controller, which massively increased the cost of the console and which developers only used for gimmicks.

The question should be what does everyone accept as a 'demonstration of value' with regards to Kinect.

Some will say it must have games that make full use of it. Some will say it must be better integrated into the usage of the system (say improving the voice control system to be less rigid).

I do think Kinect can survive without dedicated games, but that requires MS to aggressively improve the features that make us of it now and be able to show how it can be used to augment most games even if that game is not a 'kinect' game.

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I don't understand why Pachter news is allowed here. The guy doesn't contribute anything to gaming.

 

Oh and Kinect isn't going anywhere. Not sure how many times Microsoft needs to say it. Or how obvious it is that it's a part of the system and here to stay. Just wishful thinking on some members' parts.

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Kinect is overrated and bundled.  I don't want it, and I'm offended that it's included.  If Microsoft could prove to me that the price for the XBox One is not inflated by the inclusion of the Kinect, I would be less bothered by this, but they obviously cant.

 

At it's core, the XBox is a product built to provide games.  Anything else is a wish and a dream, and like most wishes and dreams, the powers-that-be will always angle to get their wishes and dreams fulfilled.  I have no problem with things that are added on that demonstrably help the core feature of the product - playing games - but the Kinect is not assistance in that area.  You're lying to yourself or a MS apologist if you think otherwise.  Login recognition and voice activation is not going to help you with Titanfall or Call of Duty any more than a headset would have.

 

The argument is simple if you look at it a different way.  XBox One is 500 bucks right now.  If it were 600 bucks and included a keyboard/mouse combo, there are people who would say "wow that really helped, and I like it a lot" and there would be people who say "I just don't need it, why is it included?"  ... it really doesn't matter what you think about it, it's still elevating the cost of the unit for a subset of features and usability, in short: BUNDLING.

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