I think the purpose of a mandatory kinect to achieve a unified install base is a bit wishful thinking.
For 3rd party developers, the userbase is already split between XBox, Playstation and Nintendo, and I doubt it those developers are going to implement kinect specific features in their games that will improve the game experience for core gamers.
I think the vast majority of the core gamers are perfectly satisfied with a descent controller and headset.
Could someone give me a good example of a Kinect feature that really might improve game experiences with AAA titles like Titanfall, Forza and/or Halo for instance ? Because I doubt it. I think the touchpad on the PS4 controller will be utilized more by 3rd party developers because of it convience and controlling posibilites hence improving the game experience.
If there are going to be any games which are going to utilize the kinect features to their fullest, it's going to be party games.
And there's nothing wrong with that, but that would be targeted at an entire different userbase, not the core gamers.
It would be much more consumer friendly if they would sell the device optionally, bundled with some great party / sports game, and I think they would eventually sell millions of those.
That way party gamers as well as core gamers would be perfectly happy on the same platform, but requiring another 100 dollars for a device that I don't want isn't exactly consumer friendly.
