Agreed.  If the alternative is XBone doing very poorly anyways, salvaging it to be half-close to parity with PS4 in marketshare is a decent strategy,

especially since by dropping Kinect they can drop the price ~$100 without needing to lose any more money.  That leaves them with the weake console,

but they still have many exclusive games coming, and they could plausibly try to undercut Sony by $50 eventually to achieve more sales.

http://www.vg247.com/2014/01/31/senior-publishing-source-confirms-new-cheaper-xbox-one-release-for-2014/
"Microsoft has told trusted publishing partners that it will release a new model Xbox One before the end of the year, a senior source has confirmed to VG247."

"By the end of the year" means by next holiday season. I wouldn't be surprised if BOTH MS and Sony are able to gain prodution cost decreases by years end, and a $100 cut for each by next holiday wouldn't be shocking. Of course, if Sony is feeling confident, they may drop only by $50 if they feel they won't lose sales and can just enjoy the profits. Unbundling Kinect really seems the only way to be able to achieve parity with, or beat Sony on price. If they're going to do that, by next holiday seems a good idea, so that they don't end up giving Sony a major lead that they will try to crawl back against (with the weaker console).

At this point in time there is no way MS could compete with Sony on price without taking a huge loss or gimping the console.

According to IHS it cost them $471 do build.

Pulling out the BD drive would only allow them to drop the price by $50 max without taking a financial hit and would alienate a huge chunk of the market who won't or can't go fully digital.

Removing Kinect would allow them to compete on price but would leave people with a system designed around a piece of hardware they don't have. On top of that it would likely crush any chance that people who do have the kinect to see more in game functionality.

I could see a $450 Xbox One by the end of the year. That leaves MS with a fairly small loss and allows them to keep the console intact. It all depends on whether MS wants Xbox to have marketshare or if they want to make a profit. As of right now they can't have both. Personally I don't even think dropping the price would give them the piece of the market they want.

Is it a poem?

You're wWrong there tho. the 20GB had WIFI. That was the SKU I purchased.

The PS4 is the top selling next gen system in the US, which is the most damaging fact of all.

That's a nice article to help force the "opinion" of price cut necessity to consumers and the company as well. By having more people talk about it every day, eventually MS will be "persuaded" to do it.

Journalists trying to move the world. No news here.

Yeah, you certainly sound like you've been using a dreaming machine.

That needs to happen if MS wants the Xbox One to be as close as possible to the PS4 sales-wise....or they can be happy with sales in the 40-50 million range.. That's an option, too!

when you have to release a new sku, potentially dumping a "core part of the experience" in favor of dropping the price, less than 6 months after the consoles launch, you know it's not setting a good tone for the rest of the consoles lifetime.

Xbox apologists can say what you want but all a price drop is going to do, so early on, is make people on the fence wait a little longer hoping for further reductions.