Why I think removing the Kinect is a bad idea for Microsoft.

[joeorc]

Intrinsic said:
The problem with your solutions is that they all require time to implement. Time that MS does not have. Software isn't just something MS can cook up overnight. And its not like the competition will be sitting on their hands not making great software too. Right now worldwide MS is like 3ml consoles behind its primary competitor in just 6 months on the market. That is just wrong so early in especially when you consider that you are in an industry where word of mouth is the biggest marketing strategy.

Removing kinect was a brilliant move by MS, their real big mistake was that they should have always made it an option from the start, $399 without and $499 with it. You only need to mandate hardware that is attributive to the platforms primary functions eg. a controller. Kinect is and was always just a novelty whose existence doesn't really make or break the primary way the console is used.

The most immediate remedy to any sales problem is a price drop, the only way MS could afford to do that so early is to take out the one thing that impacts the console the least. Though I don't think price parity is good enough.

This is exactly what the OP  I THINK IS TALKING ABOUT! yest the xboxone is 3 million behind, but are you making the system "just for the money" or are you building a product for a strong foundation of growth for keeping the installbase to keep coming back, to stick with your product!, its one thing to be behind by that much and say hey were really behind right now, we have to make a change, but to split off your core product design focus for that change is not something you would want to do, if it results in reduction's to the perception of the company's lack of focus.

Again if the xboxone is selling faster than even the freaking xbox360 at the time of release, how is that such a bad sales through point?

its one thing to say, well so n so is selling so much better than we are right now, but to up and quite your core platforms real starting focus so quick shows lack of conviction to that platforms core design!

The fact that the xboxone was pitched to the consumer and investment community as "Kinect was the core system function of its design" and now you are selling the base unit without, it would have been one thing to start off with the xboxone split like this, but doing it this way Microsoft has effectivley now forked Kiect from being "requuired" to now being an optional component! it has lost a part of its core platform identity!

by doing this, one could say they are making sure they are averting a failure, which can indeed be true, but again if Microsoft's xboxone is selling faster than the xbox360 was in the same point in time, do you think Microsoft doing this is more damageing to the overall points of the xboxone's platform perception about what the platforms focus was about than; to what it will be in the future?