They will but not until the end of the year. They probably think the first buyers would feel betrayed. So, Xbox One for $400 or less in some moment of 2015 is more than likely.

You're missing that, not accounting for Kinect, PS4 is NOT significantly more expensive than XBone to produce.

Their GPUs are the same size, which is primary determiner of cost, but the PS4 uses that for more GPU Compute Units and ROPs, etc,

while XBone uses it for a special memory cache to make up for their use of slower memory. 

DDR is somewhat cheaper than GDDR, but GDDR prices dropped significantly from when MS made their design choice,

and Sony in fact just bought a memory factory, so they can make their own.  The memory technologies are not fundamentally different,

it is just a matter of how they are arranged and controlled, so PS4 is just not going to be significantly more expensive than Kinect-less XBone.

Sony is set for 2:1 or more sales advantage, and should be able to leverage that for better component discounts compared to MS.

Dropping Kinect would allow MS to match Sony for price, but MS really can't gain any advantage without losing hundreds of millions of $$$.

Interesting.  What are the GDDR5 prices now?  Last year estimates were near $100 just for the PS4 RAM, probably around double the price of the Xbox One's RAM at the time.  If the prices fell significantly that sounds like a big win for Sony.

I'm not sure at the moment... But with Sony being one vendor vs. the fragmented videocard vendors AND Sony throwing in 8 frigging gigs per console when the PC standard is 1-2, it is certain that Sony will get VERY good pricing for their GDDR compared to any other purchaser, much less generic 'spot prices'.  Never mind Sony's recent purchase of a memory manufacturer, meaning they can get it at-cost once that fab can be switched to full GDDR production. 

I'm not saying that there will be no price difference at all, but I don't see that it would be enough to counter the effects of Sony confidently having market dominance and better economies of scale.  Not to mention that any subsidies are WAY more rationale for Sony than for MS, given Sony may make 2x+ the revenue from licencing fees for games: the tide is going in Sony's favor.

To the question of a Kinect-less SKU...
If MS is NOT looking at that right now, wouldn't they be hyping Kinect-centric games?
Wouldn't Kinect-required games be constantly publicized?
But they're not, the launch games hyped to use Kinect ended up dropping/reducing that functionality.
MS is reduced to hyping the voice control aspect of Kinect, which obvously doesn't require $100 cameras,
and PS4 has no technical limitation to doing just as well, even if Sony hasn't currently developed that as much.
Fun party type motion games can also be done via PSEye, even if in a slightly different way.
MS themselves provide no indication of believing that Kinect has any relevance in gaming.
Given that, and the fact that PS4 is eating the gamer market for lunch,
while the hypothetical non-gamer interested-in-$500-voice-controlled-alternate-cablebox-interface market hasn't shown up.
(and again, PS4 has no technical limitation to doing voice control, and CAN interface with/control cable boxes/etc via HDMI, even if not displaying it's own graphical content on-screen)
Dropping their price to parity by un-bundling Kinect so that they can at least compete on even footing with exclusives and less tech-savvy customers seems a no-brainer.
In the end, who 'wins' the generation is of secondary importance to BOTH Sony and MS, they both just want to be profitable, and it's possible to do that while being #2, even a #2 with 30% share.

As far as the poll goes, I voted "No" based off of possible dealings that...might not have anything to do with gaming. Here's my take: Johnny wants an Xbox One for his birthday. Now Johnny gets ANYTHING he wants video game related to keep him preoccupied, because of a "busy" single mother. She doesn't know anything or has any views at all about video games. But mom does watch the NEWS. All the talk from Ed Snowden on NSA dealings with Microsoft, warranted or not, has garnered her attention. So when Johnny asks for an Xbox One, that's already $100 more than it's competitors, but also a voice-recognizing, always activated camera, well...this time she says, "Sh*t No!"

Look, Microsoft knew about their collabo with the NSA being revealed WELL before the launch. You changed EVERYTHING that was a negative to fans, but the KINECT. And to be quite honest, me being a PS4 owner, I'm gonna say that Microsoft can turn all of the problems of the Xbox One around, and make it a fight this gen, if you'd just...drop the KINECT and $100...NOW. They don't gain financial profit from selling their system with it, why so ADAMANT about keeping it together? "KINECT is Xbox One", remember that? At E3, I would've considered their idea of being Digital Only as being more Xbox One than KINECT. Why STILL force it, after the E3 backlash, after the launch...HELL, after January NPD numbers? Why? I just think the answer to that has more to do with "American Politics", than anything else. So no, as obvious as it was/is to have a KINECT-less Xbox One, I think it's not happening...

lollercopters :D

WELL THANK YOU CAPTAIN HINDSIGHT

Hell I and many others called this one well in advance. It's hardly rocket science.

If Microsoft had delivered on the Kinect promise in actual games, in a meaningful way, this wouldn't have happened. It was clear even at the last E3 (Ryse kinect controls cancelled, no major AAA games Kinect exclusive, etc) that Kinect was DOA outside of convenience factor for some users.

Let it be known  ICStats was absolutly right about Xb1 price drop. It was a great call and he deserves credit for it. Lets hope we can all be as accurate and have good sound logic and reason. Those of you that had differing opinions take note: