Actually i dont think its important for MS to show Kinect as an important device for hardcore gaming...because lets face it, its not.

But they do need to use Kinect to appeal to casuals and come up with new fun ways to play. They havent done that at all with the new Kinect. Which is weird considering that they are bundling it with every X1...

Its like they half in, half out when it comes to Kinect.

"I work here, so I root for the home team."

His last sentence is all that really needs to be said.

THIS...

What I don't get is why are they surprised folks are scrutinizing over specs. Most people don't spend $400-$500 at the drop of a hat without careful review. Anyone that buys at these price points most likely wont buy both consoles so there is a lot at stake when you finalize your decision.

I am glad MS is doing as well as they are. Competition is a good thing for consumers. But Sony has the easiest job of advertising. Don't say anything and let MS "F" up the game themselves.

In the end its good PR for Sony without doing much.
Sony isn't even talking anymore about the big power differences and how much superior they are.If they would stop arguing and justifying a lot less people would pick up on these news.
These guys are so pathetic - Why can't they just accept the PS4 is the best and they can be happy they aren't in the same situation as Nintendo is and at least get the games.
I mean of course they are nowhere near close to the console which costs less but if you have unreasonable hate and want to have inferior games you should pay more for your...way of thinking =)

But i love how the spinning is somehow identical to some of the guys here we all know :D

Interviews like this actually hurt MS more than they benefit them.

That's true but they keep saying how Kinect is going to improve the games because now that devs know kinect is in every box, they can make amazing experiences with it. You can't blame someone for having higher expectations out of Kinect with all its supposed improvements.

But yeah, at least they should be going for that casual market with kinect. But we all know casuals aren't going to buy a games console for $500. One of the main reasons why the Wii sold so much was its relatively chaeap price tag from launch.

This is the only coherent strategy can MS could really have, and it's the OBVIOUS one that should have stemmed from their design decision to bundle Kinect.

So it's all the more baffling why it has not been pursued.

The mass understanding of Kinect's usage is voice control, which isn't even unique to it, so MS is just lucking out with a minor advantage in that perception.

MS was boosting Kinect big before launch, but more and more launch games ended up dropping Kinect functionality that they had previously touted.

Anybody who pays attention might think that indicates that actual game developer found that Kinect just wasn't that useful for games.

If Kinect's gaming value is not demonstrated in several ways, which means several and many games, then it will not help sell a game console. Period.

Personally, I'm not convinced of Kinect's value for gaming, vs. Six Axis, other platforms' equal voice control capability, and Sony Eye/Move.

Six Axis just seems a better 'auxiliary' control (keeping hands fully in control of all buttons/sticks)  vs. waving around body/hands for Kinect,

and can pretty much accomplish similar 'gestures' that Kinect would do in such scenarios.  So maybe they're not doing it because it can't be done.

Regarding GPU power and RAM, Sony basically lucked out there:

until the last minute they were going to have only 4 GB of GDDR for total system memory, which would have been a serious downside vs XBone.

MS took the conservative design approach there, assuming 8GB couldn't be reached with all GDDR, and so dedicated GPU space to ESRAM.

GDDR ended up moving cheaper, and Sony's decision ended up allowing them 50% more GPU cores, along with other advantages.  Their luck.

But the memory difference isn't remotely enough to account for the $100 price difference, that comes down to the bundled Kinect.

MS is realistically facing a tougher sell considering the GPU/memory and the bad PR stemming from their policies,

but they are compounding it by not really emphasizing or selling the reason why they are charging $100 more than Sony.

Great post sums it up, except sony being lucky?? They simply out manuvered MS and made correct decisons and had 1 solid message. no luck about it. They changed from 4 to 8, that was a decision, not luck, based on talking to the right people and looking at what devs needed. No luck involved.