With that key marketing push, they need key software.

Id imagine that the only real time they could pull it off would be during the Holidays. That said, Im fully expecting a pricecut and the White One to go alongside the key software.

I was speaking specifically about how the US has favoured the 360 last gen.

If PS4 becomes the prefered US console to that level then i dont see the console business being worth it for MS (in the short term).

why would Xbox remove kinect,i just don't get that,it is a major part of the system,they should have stuck with what they had originally planned and taken the long game

Its what they need to do though.I wasnt looking at the detail of what that entails.

I really dont think MS is in the console business to make heaps of money. I see it as a way MS gets into your living room...a place they generally dont have any presence. Ms have always spoken about a bigger picture with the Xbox brand.

Not because Social Media. Console wars existed since SNES / Genisis and would still have happened wo the new types of comunication. But social media expanded it somewhat.

My first reaction was that this was sarcasm but seeing as how its not parodying anything people are saying, I've come to the conclusion that you actually believe this and such is puzzling.

The situation we are in where the gap is only "2 million" can attest to that. The casuals aren't picking it up when it has MS is basically subsidizing the Kinect and Titan Fall and giving them away for free. How on earth can you claim that a 500$ DRM Spybox would perform even at par with what MS has now?

Agreed, that part of MS's XB1 launch made no sense. MS PR made a big deal about the improved capability of the new Kinect, mentioned that the XB1's lower specs were in part mitigated by the improved immersion thanks to the new kinect, yet when it released there is nothing to sell it other than the fact the UI needs it. Sony has shown that you don't need the expense of the Kinect hardware to handle voice commands and face recognition, the two things that many XB1 fans crow about. MS could have done the same with the original Kinect hardware without all the additional investment, or a simple web camera. 

You can tell MS don't really believe in Kinect through their constant defence of the XB1's specs and performance in cross-platform games. If MS really believed that Kinect provided a better gaming experience then they wouldn't need to keep defending the XB1's performance in these games because Kinect would make up for the lower resolution in gaming immersion, but they aren't doing that. MS needs to start actively selling the Kinect on its merits if it wants people to pay extra for it, and one Kinect game (Rivals) isn't going to cut it, it needs to be heavily used in all their first party games, otherwise it'll just end up like the Wii U's gamepad, an arguably unappealing and expensive accessory that just puts a barrier on entry to an otherwise fine gaming system. 

This will make E3 a lot more exciting, to be sure. Winning March NPD might have given them some false hope in terms of how things are headed. This will ensure MAJOR changes. They're going to open the floodgates on total madness there, bank on it.

Also, people are delusional if they truly believe that sticking with Kinect is worthwhile if it means a higher price.

We live in a socially-connected world, and losing inertia to your competitor early in a large and consistent way is a path to failure and irrelevancy in respect to competitive AAA gaming economics. What simply happens is that people start buying console A because all of their friends are buying console A and they want to be on that page.

Even multi-console people are a loss to them thanks to the multiplats being usually superior on PS4. So someone with a PS4 and XB1 would be fairly likely to only buy exclusives for the XB1. As opposed to the U where the exclusives ARE the reason to own the system, and there are more of them (and they hold high pricing for ludicrous periods, watch MK8 still be $59 in two or three years on).

So yes, watch for massive moves at E3. Heads are exploding all over MS right now.

Dare I say it : $299 kinectless XB1 w/1 year of XBLG.

Likely? Only moderately. But that is dramatically higher than if they had comfortably won March NPD with their $449+Titanfall effort.

Vita saving this industry. 

Microsoft is really going to have to bring their A game this E3. I can't imagine they're happy with these sales.