6 months seems like a nice, round estimate for a lower priced SKU of a platform that has not been performing within manufacturer's expectations. Timing-wise, it also happens to fall shortly before E3.
It was pretty obvious that the $499 MSRP simply wasn't floating compared to the $399 PS4. It was also pretty obvious that the simplest way for MS to cut BoM costs on the current SKU in order to price match was to simply sell it without Kinect. Without enough time to push a revised hardware unit into production with a lower BoM (12 months is more realistic), the simplest, most expedient way to drop price was to simply drop Kinect.
If people we're being as specific as possible rather than just throwing out times, most probably would have said MS would sell a Kinect-less SKU and announce it at E3. The only reason it makes sense for MS to announce it before, is because they didn't want to make a huge production out of the new SKU, since it is backpedaling on their original vision for the XB1, and more importantly, they probably have bigger announcements to dedicate keynote conference time to this year.
I'm trying to remember when Sony first dropped the price of the CECH-AO1 SKU (before it was replaced with the updated model), because it happens to be a very good example of a console that was initially placed at the highest price point due to manufacturing costs, subsequently performed below expectations and required a sooner than planned price adjustment to compensate for lowered consumer interest.
I want to say it was after E3 2007, but before the holiday season of 2007. I think it was in the fall, or about 9 months after launch. They sold the remaining CECH-A01 stock at an even greater loss, but it was replaced shortly after by a revised model with slightly lower manufacturing costs. Still at an MSRP significantly under actual manufacturing cost.
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