New XBox One SKU without Kinect

[Brad]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_NLK-jEDGc

[J0e Musashi]

I thought you had to have the camera?

[VR46]

Excellent.

For those that can't accress Youtube, this is the text to accompany the video.

Phil Spencer and Yusuf Mehdi discuss the new standalone Xbox One console option without Kinect, which will be available June 9th, 2014 wherever Xbox One is available.

Details here:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-05-13-microsoft-to-sell-xbox-one-without-kinect

Some of the comments on Eurogamer are funny. Sounds like the price won't really be any cheaper than it is at the moment due to retailer offers etc. Have to wait and see what further deals come up.

[Baseley09]

Spineless wimps, talk about not standing by your guns. Split hardware SKU's in consoles is never a good thing imo. MS are going backwards with this.

[Brad]

I guess they had no AAA Kinect games in development then otherwise that'd be a kick in the balls to those devs. Last E3 Microsoft had a vision. Very quick to throw it all away I think.

[VR46]

Sales figures and money talks at the end of the day.

Diskinect

[charlesr]

srsly?

[briareos_kerensky]

I thought you had to have the camera?

No, they patched out the Kinect requirement with the first update. IIRC the Kinect had to be installed during the first boot for launch units until you updated.

[Brad]

I wonder if they'll do an even cheaper SKU with out "the cloud"?

[Lebowski]

There ditching kinect so soon?, this signals a real lack of confidence in there product, and if Microsoft don't have confidence in it how can consumers, I wonder if this is part of a plan to get more power out of there box too, as now there's going to be a massive amount of xboxs that don't need to reserve power for kinect features.

[VR46]

Does the One detect if Kinect is plugged in though and allocate the extra 10% (or whatever it is) if no Kinect is present? suppose it would be easy enough to add as an update.

Charles - your oldest would appreciate my humour I'm sure.

[BaronSqwelch]

As soon as they update the dash to work properly without voice control I will be handing over my cash.

[originalbadboy]

As soon as they update the dash to work properly without voice control I will be handing over my cash.

It does now ...

[originalbadboy]

I wonder if they'll do an even cheaper SKU with out "the cloud"?

LOL .. I assume thats a joke ...

[Brad]

It was.

Long term I think this is a good move. Bring the focus back to the games. I know some people like Kinect. I really like PS Move but I appreciate that this hasn't really amounted to much for Sony so must remain a niche. Same thing for Kinect IMO.