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Forums - Microsoft Discussion - Polygon: Microsoft needs to admit the Xbox One Kinect is a peripheral, not a pack-in

S.T.A.G.E. on 18 February 2014
dane007 said:
@STAGE the design of the UI greatly benefits with teh use of kinect. Its easy to navigate with the controller ,, but yo ucan tell that its meant to be navigated using Kinect. i mean look at the ps4,, if it wasn't for MS PR blunder,, the ps4 woul dhave been shipped withe ps eye. Evidence can be seen with controller light can comes out from teh controller. It wsa meant to sync it with teh ps eye and hence why Sony won't add a patch to disbaled it and hence why tehy ditched it and took off taht 100 price tag ot make it a cheaper console to xbox one. SO saying ms is a dishonest company is denial at best as sony would never admit that they orignally planned ot release ps eye alongise their consoel much liek what MS did. Sony has lied ot its consumer as much as MS lol. both in fact are very dishonest . sayign one is better teh other is total BS lol. Back to the topic : Kinect cna be useful to xbox one ,, it jsut need ot eb done properly. Ms just has to realise that you cannot replace the controller but use kinect as additional acessory to the controller . That alone cna make teh game more immersive and better.


I'll simplify it. You can enjoy it both ways and one might make it easier, but it is not primary. Forcing it upon people might not be as bad as the previous deception which they owned up to about the Xbox One needing the Kinect, but it doesnt help. Its kind of obvious that the Kinect hype died down and they force bundled it. Microsoft isnt like Sony...they arent as confident about things they pour money into so they bundle the shit out of it to make sure it profits. Sony bundles but they give you a choice. I only use Sony as an example not the rule. Everyone has a choice and MS twice now has chosen to take the shady route. 



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S.T.A.G.E. on 18 February 2014
Zappykins said:
What a silly article. True, they do need more Kinect games, but that will come with time.

It reminds me of the people that were against building subways in New York City or against making The Grand Canyon a National Park. People with limited imaginations and uninteresting lives shouldn't waste their time telling others why something great will not work. They are always there though.


Nothing will change outside of the secondary use. Nothing a tablet couldnt cure, really better than the Kinect for outside advantages in games. Sony said it themselves, the primary function of the Eyetoy (which is essentially the same as the Kinect) is extremely limited and will lead to nothing but mini-games. Unless they add a peripheral device to the Kinect there will be no depth to what you're already seeing. Its basically the same Kinect, but more powerful. The recognition is better sure, but in the end the only game that will truly use it properly is Dance Central.

In times like these i'd take the advice of the oompany that has been internally creating the same tech for over almost fifteen years over a company who took sloppy seconds and after the first failed attempt is so headstrong they wont accept that it isn't as strong as useful in a primary sense as they wish it was.

The difference between MS and Sony in dealing with this issue is Sony saw that the motion control tech stand-alone with the camera, no matter how powerful is still limited. They knew this from 2003. When the Eyetoy launched they admitted years later that they werent happy with the fact that the camera alone left them stuck in min-game hell so they started developing the tech for what would later on be known as the "Move" in 2004.



Fusioncode on 18 February 2014
Zappykins said:
What a silly article. True, they do need more Kinect games, but that will come with time.

It reminds me of the people that were against building subways in New York City or against making The Grand Canyon a National Park. People with limited imaginations and uninteresting lives shouldn't waste their time telling others why something great will not work. They are always there though.

Kinect has been around for nearly four years and has brought absolutely nothing interesting or innovative to the medium. Microsoft realizes this too, it's why the Kinect has been reduced to nothing more than an interface tool for the XBO with very little games using the device. 



Sigs are dumb. And so are you!

Trunkin on 18 February 2014
ethomaz said:
In my opinion the only think that differentiates Xbone is Kinect... if you removes it then it will loose in every single aspect to PS4... so it will became a non buy machine.

MS needs price cuts and games... I think the Kinect-less SKU a terrible idea.

Now some user experience with the UI... it doesn't works well without Kinect... it is a mess to navigate using controller on Xbone.... the UI was designed to works with Kinect... so if they choose to go with non-Kinect SKU they will need to make drastic changes in the UI.

This. So much this. 

Unless removing Kinect allows them to undercut Sony by $50-100, removing it would be a huge, catastrophic mistake. Kinect's software issues can be patched, manufacturing costs can be lowered, but they'd have to live with the ramifications of releasing a "$400 box that's worse than the PS4 in every single way" for the rest of the generation.

I recall reading that M$ delayed the original Xbox an entire year because without the advancements in power and technology they'd have nothing to differentiate themselves from the already-successful PS2. Same here.  I cant see how a Kinectless SKU would improve sales when Kinect is currently the only hardware justification for spending as much or more for this console than for a PS4, and I think M$ knows this, so I don't see them ever removing Kinect.



SvennoJ on 18 February 2014
Kyuu said:
I didn't read the whole article but it's up to Microsoft how they want to market their product like. If Kinect were to succeed, development to motion gaming would've flourished. Microsoft was attempting to change the way how we play video games. In a fashion close too Wii. Whether or not Kinect is a peripheral is decided through success or failure.

Now that they're clearly failing, they got to get rid of it asap. Microsoft contradicted its own vision by not releasing or even announcing any high profile Kinect game to convince people that "it works"

That, Kinect's high costs, and their confusing and inconsistent planning resulted from the backlash, caused the ultimate end to their vision.

Nah, they were attempting to change the way we interact with tv. Gaming was never a priority for Kinect 2.0

However $500 plus $60 a year is too much for the casual consumer to go all googly eyed over an all in one entertainment box. Plus they're set in their ways and not as ready as early adopters to change everything in 1 go, nor does it replace your existing cable box.

For the video enthusiasts it doesn's offer enough. One HDMI in port is useless when you use an amp to switch between sources, plus the reviews of the HDMI in performance are not all that favorable with added lag and image 'enhancements'

So what you have is a $500 UI to Skype, browse the internet and access digital video content for $60 a year, and play games on the side.



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Vasto on 18 February 2014

Kinect Sports should have been a day 1 launch title that came with every Xbox One. People would have been talking about how good Kinect is and that's what people want to hear. The main thing they need to do right now is reduce the price to $399 and afther that get rid of the stupid Xbox Live pay wall. Xbox Live should only be required for multiplayer gaming like PSN.



dane007 on 18 February 2014

@STAGE well it depends. for need for speed it helps alot for accessing GPS. You can't pause the game and acess the gps t find the nearest safe house while being chase by cops. if you pause teh game you will be busted. In thatsesne the kinect is useful and handy. You do know that sony was planning to bundle their PS eye with teh ps4,, hence the design of teh ps4 controller .. The light at the back of the controller,, is an indication to what they had originally in mind. If MS PR didn't screw it up both companies would have released ,, so really sony is not providing any choice. In fact sony is less confident since they back out with bundling their ps eye with the machine while MS stuck with it. How is it shady? MS is trying to do different while sony is just doing same thing every gen by jsut releasing a more powerful console. Afterall consoles are no longer jsut for playing games. What i am saying is that its good to try and create something different and add variety to gaming . Theres no harm it that right? Days of just playing games with yoru consoles is getting less and less . it won't die out but peopel nowadays use their consoles for a variety of reasons apart from gaming. When trying to innovate something ,, you won't be successful straight away,,, it takes time. Kinect may not be of use at this moment but in the long run,, if MS sticks with it,, who knows the potential it could have as kinect 2.0 is a powerful device. At least MS sticking with it and supporting it as much as they an . i wish i coudl say the same for psvita .



dane007 on 18 February 2014

@stage "The difference between MS and Sony in dealing with this issue is Sony saw that the motion control tech stand-alone with the camera, no matter how powerful is still limited. They knew this from 2003. When the Eyetoy launched they admitted years later that they werent happy with the fact that the camera alone left them stuck in min-game hell so they started developing the tech for what would later on be known as the "Move" in 2004."

Thats why the new sony controller has teh led light at teh back as part of teh design to be recognized by the eye toy.. If what you say is true than teh controller wouldn't have that built in .. As i have said ,, MS blunder in pr made them to remove teh ps eye from their original plan of bundling it with teh PS4



Machiavellian on 18 February 2014
Areym said:
I will never understand why MS shoe-horned the Kinect into every Xbox One. The solution is so simple: Sell a kinect-less Xbox One and sell will most likely pick up,

There is very little demand for Kinect, both from consumers and developers.

I believe the key is that MS as a business do not think like your average gamer.  Its evident they have long term goals for the device and probably also are building and improving how the device integrates with the X1 as well as their services.  Its clear that for MS its not about how many consoles can we sell over our competition in the first year but instead how can long term goals featuring Kinect make their ecosystem better.

With any new device, you build demand by bring out killer features.  It is up to MS to provide those must have features for the device but it also means they do not have to knee jerk and react just because the PS4 is selling better.  Its not like the X1 isn't selling good and it probably will continue to do good numbers with good games and features to the console.  

One thing I do know is MS does not get things right on the first try but they do get it right eventually.  I am interested to see what they have cooking for the X1 where they believe will give them an advantage.  Its probably not going to be anything we see in the next 6 months but probably about Christmas time MS will be ready to show their hand.  Either that or they will just drop Kinect and go a different direction.



MonstaTruk on 18 February 2014
binary solo said:
I was considering starting a thread, but I guess asking the question here is as good a place as any.

What would the Xb one look like if Kinect was an optional peripheral like the PS Eye?

We know that 8GB DDR3 RAM was locked in to the design early, and there's no way removing Kinect would have had MS plugging in GDDR5 at the early design stage, they wanted 8GB RAM at a good price and at the time only DDR3 fit the bill. Or was it locked in? If MS was less focussed on Kinect and perhaps then less focussed on multi-media functionality might they have done initial designs with 4GB GDDR5 like Sony did? Hard to speculate on that I guess so I'm going to stick to the assumption that MS was going 8GB DDR3 regardless of the Kinect situation.

But in terms of the rest of the box, it's specs and price point what would MS have done differently to the box we have today? Could it have substantially improved the specs, and launched at $399, and been at a slight profit? By most accounts Kinect is <$100 to make so the Xb one we have today without Kinect would still be at a $399 price point to be profitable from day 1 (as opposed to a lower spec'd machine launching for $349, which is far more acceptable to the consumer). So could MS have spec'd up the box with more or less the same bells and whistles as PS4 and launched at a profit?

Sony has more or less confirmed that PS4 is not selling at a profit on hardware alone, they need the buyer to buy 1, maybe 2 games and/or sign up to PSN+. Does this mean if MS felt compelled to have a box that was profitable on HW alone then even at $399 without Kinect they would have had to live with a lower spec'd machine with the benefit of being able to drop the price sooner?

Was there pressure from the anti-Xbox faction inside MS what drove the Xbox guys to make sure the box sold at a profit at launch? Selling at a small loss at launch is a decent strategy for consoles if it's going to secure market share (and better yet if it's going to secure gen on gen growth and hopefully market dominance). Has MS sacrificed market position for HW profit, which, even without Kinect, could be at the cost of not achieving gen on gen growth and failing to secure market dominance (other than the USA and maybe UK)? Could a packed in Kinect Xb one at $449 have been much more competetive with PS4? It's a $20-ish loss but that's no big deal really, especially not for MS. Except for the fact that the aggregate profit/loss history for Xbox is still a net loss despite Xbox 360 being profitable on an annual basis for a number of years.

There were a lot of decisions made about Xb one which individually probably seemed very sound at the time, but the sum of all those seemingly reasonable decisions ended up putting Xb one in a disadvantaged position. And this is even if you take out the DRM debacle. Is it because their design philiosophy from the start was too complex and convoluted: We want a great all-in-one box, as opposed to Sony's apparently more simple design philosophy: We want the best gaming machine $399 can buy? They both achieved their starting design goals, but MS's end product has proven a lot more difficult to market.

Very good question.

 

It would be a FIGHT, again.  It would be a fight that, with Microsoft's financial resources and marketing savvy, they could be in contention of winning.  Or make it a competitive run, at least.  Microsoft knows that it's the KINECT, we'll have to wait and see if being in the gaming industry is worth it to drop the KINECT.  Sounds crazy, right?  I mean, why would MS have an emotional attachment to the thing!  lol  I just think there's more to the KINECT story than just for games, and apparently, according to January sales, so do a lot of other people... :-/