Kinect was the thing that turned me from xbox to Playstation. It wasn't the device itself, but Microsoft's change in focus regarding games after the damn thing came out. I always thought the game libraries were equal before Kinect came out. After it came out MS produced casual games for a year and then tried to produce Kinect games for the core, but just pumped out duds like Steel Battalion, Fable the Journey and Star Wars.

Absolutely loved the pre-Kinect years with my 360. Exclusives galore.
Kameo,
BK Nuts & Bolts,
Ninety Nine Nights,
Lost Odyssey,
Blue Dragon (yeah I liked it lol)
Tales of Vesperia,
Last Remnant,
Tenchu Z,
Viva Pinata,
Crackdown,
Project Sylpheed,
Infinite Undiscovery,
Bullet Witch,
Ace Combat 6,
Kindom Under Fire,
and many more.

These are some the actual exclusives, but console exclusives were good too back then with games like,

Left 4 Dead 1+2
Command and Conquer
Battle stations Midway and Pacific
Ninja Blade,
Supreme Commander
and many more.

And let's not forget the good games that came out as timed exclusives on the 360

Oblivion
Bioshock
Mass Effect
and so on.

I was still a 360 hopeful about mid-2010 I was actually semi-exited about kinect. The exclusives had been drying up for a little while, but it was okay because we knew they had to focus on the kinect launch, we knew they'd be back.... we thought they'd be back.

So in the end exclusive game production stopped outside of Halo, Forza and Fable, and in the end they even let Kinect get its grubby little hands on Fable and ruin that franchise too. Microsoft got a great license like Star Was and threw that into the kinectshitpile and even found a nice historic franchise like Steel Battalion to be molested too.

It's not so much that I'm negative towards Kinect, I actually f***ing hate it.

No kinect as an alterrantive is NOT a bad thing. The problem is that for everyone buying an x1, the kinect (and its many issues) are being forced on them as its bundled with the x1 which has meant a price increase for everyone not interested in it. The point is that with the X1, its NOT an alternative, its COMPUlSORY. Essentially what I am getting at is that imo the presence of kinect means a number of negatives for those who prefer controllers. When kinect came around on the x360, most good exclusives stopped with the exception of kinect games and a few repetitious IPs. In addition, kinect neverdid realise its promise of accuracy and great games.

Similarly on the x1, I have heard that it is harder to navigate the ui using the controller (i.e. there are more steps) than with kinect. and the price of course.

no, it really is warranted for reasons many already touched on... It's a fad, a gimmick and it will never work for games... People said this from day one, but people for some reason refuse to see it, the proof is in the pudding.

True, it's superfluous yet adding "smart" stuff to tv's doesn't increase the build costs, neither does active 3D (3D ready anyway, when you can't buy it without the glasses that's different). It's all software and a simple wifi antenna baked onto the mother board. Speech recognition software doesn't add anything to the cost either.

The difference with the negativity to Kinect 2.0 is that it does add a substantial cost to the hardware and actually hampers the primary use of the system.

Halo CE anniversary has kinect voice support through the campaign, you need to say scan and analyse around different area's to unlock certain things, you can say "grenade" or "change weapon" and "reload" in combat if you would like to do any of those things approx 5 seconds after you've said it rather than press the button for the respective move.

Forza 4 has kinect built into it also, there is even a 5 point achievement called "look ma no controller (or hands not sure)" which you have to use kinect to drive around a full race with to get meaning you need to have kinect to 100% the achievements of FM4, using kinect to drive in forza only allows you to hope to drive left and right, the game auto accelerates and breaks for you.... so yeah you get a real driving experience using kinect.

other than those 2 points, your post is true to the letter imo, with the exception of you left out Gears, which did get Gears 3 and judgement after the Kinect bomb dropped neither of which have any Kinect support. But yeah other than that, awesome post.

going through the posts in my topic, one of the recurring themes I keep reading is that the kinect in being 'forced' on gamers.
it really isn't. not at all actually
it's an integral part of the system that microsoft designed to succeed the 360.
it's not being forced on anyone.
it's similar to saying that Sony's forcing everyone to use a touchpad on the newly revised dualshock.. they're not. It's simply part of the gaming system they're selling.
I agree that it's driven up the price of the X1 and I'd be as happy as the next guy if the system were a hundred bucks cheaper.. but I want an X1 and really have no problem paying a little more for something that significantly differentiates this second wave of twin hd consoles.
When I finally get around to picking one up, the kinect 2 might just end up being largely ignored.. like the kinect I have right now.. but I still like that I have that choice, that option.
I like that Microsoft is holding their ground and saying, 'hey this is what we're offering, we want to innovate and push gaming and entertainment forward towards a future everyone knows is coming.'
I applaud them for that.
There's simply no reason, that I see at least, to get down on the Kinect for what it is and what it offers.
Nintendo moved the industry ahead in the eighties, Sony did it in the early nineties and Sega after them.. Microsoft has been doing the same since the first Xbox twelve years ago.
Like or hate it, it's good for gaming and the industry as a whole, and if you're a true gamer, and I mean a real gamer who isn't a card carrying fanboy pitifully tied to one system, then there's no reason to hate it because everybody wins: don't want it, buy Sony or Nintendo, help support them, appreciate what Microsoft's offering, support them. Everybody wins.

I don't like change!!!

Seriously if it ain't broke then don't fix it!

I generally agree with what you say; however, Kinect is enforced in 2 ways: 1. I have to pay for it even if I don't want it (which you already covered), and 2. The UI of X1 is severely unintuitive and messy using a controller only and somewhat forces you to adopt the Kinect voice commands (I don't know if this was intentionally designed as such to push people towards using Kinect) but from what I have seen first hand at demo stations and read online or viewed on Youtube, the UI is pretty crummy using a controller). That is not to say that they should not be trying something new, it is cool that they are, its just that I feel like they are pushing a half-baked product onto the consumer. At least make it work as intended, its is a motion/voice controlled device, but seems to have great difficulty doing both. Before forcing customers to buy into it, they should have ironed out all the kinks.