Xbox One without

[Luc2k]

The whole "look for cheap game bundles" doesn't make much sense to this argument because without Kinect, the bundles would have been even cheaper.

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

The whole "look for cheap game bundles" doesn't make much sense to this argument because without Kinect, the bundles would have been even cheaper.

 

Not to mention MS are losing heavily on each console. Great for the gamer's wallet, not great for MS. You can now buy an X1 in UK for same price as PS4. Very worrying.

[HawkMan]

Not to mention MS are losing heavily on each console. Great for the gamer's wallet, not great for MS. You can now buy an X1 in UK for same price as PS4. Very worrying.

 

MS themselves have not reduced the price to a level they lose money, retailers have reduced the price. 

 

And they sold consoles at a loss for several years last gen, and with the highest attachment rate, it's hardly that worrying as that's where the real money is. 

[PGHammer]

From my perspective, the real concern is price.  Privacy issues generally are omnipresent - people will claim that spy satellites are watching them - so at some point you just gotta let it go.  But when two separate products merge together to become one product, with very little reason to do so, it's bundling.

That is why I referred to the old XB360 Core - and even the recently-expired $99 deal.

 

The problem with such deals is that had a game come along that DID require the additional features (not even necessarily Kinect) you would STILL have to upgrade the console before purchasing any game that required those additional features.

 

Sony did not do that with PS3 - at no time did they ever offer an equivalent of XB360 Core. Even PS3 Slim was still as feature-packed (if not more so) as the original PS3 - it simply took up less space.

 

Lastly, if anything, the underwhelming sales of the Wii has further soured the marketplace as a whole on the games-only console - as much as you may wish otherwise.

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

MS themselves have not reduced the price to a level they lose money, retailers have reduced the price. 

 

And they sold consoles at a loss for several years last gen, and with the highest attachment rate, it's hardly that worrying as that's where the real money is. 

 

The very fact they aren't selling hardware at a loss any more tells you that it hurt them and they don't want a repeat. Never mind when you look at the financial mess Sony are in when they brought a lot of it on themsevles selling PS3s for $300 loss for 2 1/2 years. You think those retailers are selling at ?350 to quickly run out and buy more to give away more money out their own pockets? Ha

 

And MS might not have reduced it world wide, but it is an official price cut in the UK. Retailers have cut it more since with another unofficial cut.

[Lord Method Man]

 

 

Lastly, if anything, the underwhelming sales of the Wii has further soured the marketplace as a whole on the games-only console - as much as you may wish otherwise.

 

Since when is the Wii a "games-only" console.

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

i didnt read all 9 pages... what does Kinect do for a User besides hand gestures? I cant think of a single game on Xbox One that uses it.

[Lord Method Man]

i didnt read all 9 pages... what does Kinect do for a User besides hand gestures? I cant think of a single game on Xbox One that uses it.

 

Nothing. MS would do well to drop it.

 

There's a tremendous amount of animosity out there towards motion gaming that is driving consumers away from it. They simply do not want it and MS has failed to give them a reason to.

 

Last gen was all about motion controls. They were over-hyped and they under-delivered. After hearing all about how they would transform gaming all we got was a ton of shovelware dance games and a few "AAA" titles that had gimmicks crowbarred in such as ME3's "better with Kinect" banner for nothing but limited voice controls that could have been accomplished with a headset or mic.

[greenwizard88]

I'm not gonna lie, if I were to buy an xbox one, it would be with the kinect. The ability to say "Xbox, play next episode" is the one thing I miss on the PS4.

[HawkMan]

The very fact they aren't selling hardware at a loss any more tells you that it hurt them and they don't want a repeat. Never mind when you look at the financial mess Sony are in when they brought a lot of it on themsevles selling PS3s for $300 loss for 2 1/2 years. You think those retailers are selling at ?350 to quickly run out and buy more to give away more money out their own pockets? Ha

 

And MS might not have reduced it world wide, but it is an official price cut in the UK. Retailers have cut it more since with another unofficial cut.

 

Having worked and partially still working retail, I can tell you the internal retail politics on these things are very weird. and these big retail chains will sell a lot of these big popular items at a loss or at 0 hoping to sell more stuff with them. I've been annoyed at the way we have to sell laptops and such at 0 before, repeatedly. 

 

more annoyingly in most cases it's not the retail chain itself that takes the loss, but the individual franchise owners who are forced to sell them at a loss(even at 0 it's efectively a loss with transport fees, sales fees and salary).

i didnt read all 9 pages... what does Kinect do for a User besides hand gestures? I cant think of a single game on Xbox One that uses it.

 

Forza uses it for head tracking, which is awesome for racing games. 

 

Now if someone would make a new wing commander for the One using the kinect for head tracking.

[trooper11]

Not to mention MS are losing heavily on each console. Great for the gamer's wallet, not great for MS. You can now buy an X1 in UK for same price as PS4. Very worrying.

 

It's worrying? That's what everyone wants, price parity. They do that in the UK and its just bad news? I thought people would be happy.

In fact it shows that maybe, just maybe, MS is looking at the situation and deciding that eating the loss in order to cut the price is worth it vs getting rid of Kinect to do it.

 

Nothing. MS would do well to drop it.

 

There's a tremendous amount of animosity out there towards motion gaming that is driving consumers away from it. They simply do not want it and MS has failed to give them a reason to.

No its not nothing, but based on how many are convinced that it is nothing, I agree, MS may just have to drop it.

For me, voice commands and novelty in-game controls isn't worth the extra money. If there is no interesting use of this Kinect for games in this Xbox then it will end up being only marginally more useful than the last version. I am more interested to see what others do with the Kinect when/if an SDK is released for desktops.

It does more than that, but I get your point. whatever it is doing now does no interest you. You represent the majority opinion. This platform just gets more and more depressing :laugh:

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

 

It's worrying? That's what everyone wants, price parity. They do that in the UK and its just bad news? I thought people would be happy.

In fact it shows that maybe, just maybe, MS is looking at the situation and deciding that eating the loss in order to cut the price is worth it vs getting rid of Kinect to do it.

 

 

Not to mention MS are losing heavily on each console. Great for the gamer's wallet, not great for MS. You can now buy an X1 in UK for same price as PS4. Very worrying.

 

At least short term anyway. When nobody is making money it's not good news for long, even gamers when/if support dies.

 

There is no spinning this, cutting the price for whatever reason 5 months after launch = bad.

[trooper11]

At least short term anyway. When nobody is making money it's not good news for long, even gamers when/if support dies.

 

There is no spinning this, cutting the price for whatever reason 5 months after launch = bad.

Bad for MS' bottom line, not bad for console gamers. It certainly would convince me even more that MS is willing to eat losses now and make it up over the long term.

What would make me scratch my head is if people were to put down MS if they made an official price drop. Right now its just UK retailers dropping the price and MS bundling games for free worldwide (they did that at launch too though, so that's not really a price drop). If MS were to make some official cut, would it be received well, that's the question.

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

Bad for MS' bottom line, not bad for console gamers. It certainly would convince me even more that MS is willing to eat losses now and make it up over the long term.

What would make me scratch my head is if people were to put down MS if they made an official price drop. Right now its just UK retailers dropping the price and MS bundling games for free worldwide (they did that at launch too though, so that's not really a price drop). If MS were to make some official cut, would it be received well, that's the question.

 

There is an official price drop.

 

And there was a second retailer cut to ?350 from 2 retailers this week also.

 

Like I say, good in short term for gamers, bad if it means devs/pubs drop support.

 

It's not much but the next MotoGP isn't releasing on X1. A niche sport amongst the typical crowd, but you'd think a title like that would want to be on every platform. Gotta wonder why. Last generation we had a year gap between consoles so the costs for devs was much lower to enter. Now with PS4/X1 out at the same time, are the smaller studios struggling to release on both simultaneously. And if so, if they continue to pick PS4, it's another issue for MS. Hopefully the consumer to dev patch releases soon.

[trooper11]

There is an official price drop.

 

And there was a second retailer cut to ?350 from 2 retailers this week also.

 

Like I say, good in short term for gamers, bad if it means devs/pubs drop support.

 

It's not much but the next MotoGP isn't releasing on X1. A niche sport amongst the typical crowd, but you'd think a title like that would want to be on every platform. Gotta wonder why. Last generation we had a year gap between consoles so the costs for devs was much lower to enter. Now with PS4/X1 out at the same time, are the smaller studios struggling to release on both simultaneously. And if so, if they continue to pick PS4, it's another issue for MS. Hopefully the consumer to dev patch releases soon.

Alright, its bad news.

The fire sale has begun and developers are not adopting it. You have cited plenty of examples to that affect.

I just thought those that said the high cost was holding them back would now claim that the price dropping would be good for them.

So even if they cut the price and drop kinect, not much will change.

[threetonesun]

They could get rid of the camera and leave in the mic and you'd get 90% of the current Kinect experience at 10% of the cost.

[-T- Member]

Traditionally all consoles sell at a loss and it's the attach rate that is important. Non issue really

[trooper11]

They could get rid of the camera and leave in the mic and you'd get 90% of the current Kinect experience at 10% of the cost.

More like 70%, but the numbers dont really matter.

By leave in the mic, you mean just the bundled cheap headset? Even the voice commands that everyone has no interest in would be less useful having to wear a headset all the time.

But the ultimate point is true, if MS is unable to take the losses from cutting the price while keeping Kinect, then just drop Kinect.

[dead.cell]

More like 70%, but the numbers dont really matter.

By leave in the mic, you mean just the bundled cheap headset? Even the voice commands that everyone has no interest in would be less useful having to wear a headset all the time.

But the ultimate point is true, if MS is unable to take the losses from cutting the price while keeping Kinect, then just drop Kinect.

And call it the Xbox One: Diskinected Edition! :laugh:

 

Sorry, I'm a sucker for bad puns...

[PGHammer]

Since when is the Wii a "games-only" console.

What does the Wii do other than playing games?

 

So far, everyone (including Nintendo itself) has stated, and quite bluntly, that the Wii does nothing outside of games.

 

That is one reason (again, according to Nintendo) why the Wii is priced as low as it is.

 

Bit of a problem there - if a console, even a games-only console, does not have the features, content, or specs that the audience wants, it won't sell - no matter how cheap it is.

 

Content on the Wii doesn't look as good as even the XB360 - let alone either XB1 or PS4.

 

Worse, there is LESS content for the Wii (either shared content or exclusive content) - again, compared to XB360, let alone XB1 or PS4.

 

The needle got moved, and quite successfully, away from price, and it's NOT just Microsoft moving the needle.

 

Also, look at how many of you, despite the complaints about Kinect, bought the XB1 anyway, knowing that Kinect was included.  (Apparently, as much as you may have preferred a Kinectless XB1, you still bought the console, Kinect and all, as opposed to voting with your wallets and passing.)

 

More pleading of poverty - and likely from some of the same folks complaining about Walmart, yet are right there when Walmart has a Rollback.

[spenser.d]

At least short term anyway. When nobody is making money it's not good news for long, even gamers when/if support dies.

 

There is no spinning this, cutting the price for whatever reason 5 months after launch = bad.

 

:laugh: what fud.

 

It's not bad and there's nothing to worry about.  The console is selling far faster than their previous entries and gamers are picking up games like wildfire.  It's win win. You're the only one doing any spinning.

[Lord Method Man]

The Wii U has Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and Youtube built in, its own social network, video calling, and had TV integration before the Xbox One was ever announced.

[trooper11]

And call it the Xbox One: Diskinected Edition! :laugh:

 

Sorry, I'm a sucker for bad puns...

:laugh:

On a slightly more serious note, I do wonder what the reaction will be if MS drops it. I think many people around here are confident that dropping it will spur demand, that there is a seriously large group of users just waiting to buy an X1 if only kinect was gone (regardless of price).

I'm not so convinced. I have this nagging feeling that once its dropped, sales wont change much and instead of a positive wave of support from the online community, it will remain negative.

 

 

The Wii U has Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and Youtube built in, its own social network, video calling, and had TV integration before the Xbox One was ever announced.

And yet people obsessed over the idea that MS was not focused enough on games as if they were the only ones that have devoted resources to non gaming media.

MS just can't catch a break sometimes.

[GotBored]

Bit late to the convo, but I thought I'd put in my 2 cents.

 

Removing the Kinect in a new SKU is a mistake in my opinion.

 

After all the talk about bundling Kinect to force developer support for it, making early adapters pay an extra $100 for it and using it as a selling point to outline the differences between Xbox One and the competitors removing it now will be a bad idea.

 

Without the kinect its basically just a weaker console with different exclusives. I personally think Microsoft should price match the PS4 and take some losses to gain initial sales, it will eventually even out with software sales and live memberships and because its the same price and includes a camera it would be better value than the PS4 which sells the camera separately.

[MikeChipshop Member]

The mistake is also thinking that the Kinect will become immediately useful. It's been a few months since release of the XB1 and people are chanting "now now now".

We need to give it some time to progress after all we've got a lot of years of this gen ahead of us.

 

The Kinect and TV integration was the main reason i chose the XB1 over the PS4, i will pick up a PS4 at a later date for the exclusives though.