There's not a million people making those predictions tho. There aren't millions of people that use these forums and make predictions. It's considerably less than that. Predicting the results of a coin flip does merit respect. There are plenty of studies that disprove your assumptions about it http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2009/12/beware_canadian.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A%20InfectiousGreed%20%28Paul%20Kedrosky%27s%20Infectious%20Greed%29

This isn't a coin flip. Corporations are made up of people which with enough knowledge and skill can be predictable. This wasn't millions of people guessing and getting lucky. This was a group of people knowing a company and people well enough to accurately determine their habits and precisely predicting how they were going to react. That merits respect. Trivializing it gives the impression of jealousy or contempt for them being right and is frankly petty. 

Thanks. I really did feel vindicated because I got so much crap for it as well. I've even been banned sometimes.

6 months seems like a nice, round estimate for a lower priced SKU of a platform that has not been performing within manufacturer's expectations. Timing-wise, it also happens to fall shortly before E3.

It was pretty obvious that the $499 MSRP simply wasn't floating compared to the $399 PS4. It was also pretty obvious that the simplest way for MS to cut BoM costs on the current SKU in order to price match was to simply sell it without Kinect. Without enough time to push a revised hardware unit into production with a lower BoM (12 months is more realistic), the simplest, most expedient way to drop price was to simply drop Kinect.

If people we're being as specific as possible rather than just throwing out times, most probably would have said MS would sell a Kinect-less SKU and announce it at E3. The only reason it makes sense for MS to announce it before, is because they didn't want to make a huge production out of the new SKU, since it is backpedaling on their original vision for the XB1, and more importantly, they probably have bigger announcements to dedicate keynote conference time to this year.

I'm trying to remember when Sony first dropped the price of the CECH-AO1 SKU (before it was replaced with the updated model), because it happens to be a very good example of a console that was initially placed at the highest price point due to manufacturing costs, subsequently performed below expectations and required a sooner than planned price adjustment to compensate for lowered consumer interest.

I want to say it was after E3 2007, but before the holiday season of 2007. I think it was in the fall, or about 9 months after launch. They sold the remaining CECH-A01 stock at an even greater loss, but it was replaced shortly after by a revised model with slightly lower manufacturing costs. Still at an MSRP significantly under actual manufacturing cost.

Like a Halo 5 bundle, without Kinect, assuming Halo 5 doesn't use the camera/mic array. That would have made a lot of sense if there wasn't the current concern over revised sales estimates. 

But is Halo 5 even confirmed for this year?

STAGE's prediction should not just get brushed aside and compared to a lucky guess, becausreyou need to consider one fact: The prediction was made 3 months before launch. It was of course predictable, but many fans at that time were actually predicting X1 would sell well and better than PS4.
STAGE was much more objective and realistic in seeing that ramming a useless $100 piece of plastic down consumers' throats is a losing strategy.

Congrats, STAGE, I wasn't around on these forums back then, but I would have been wrong anyway, because I predicted that they will drop it in November 2013, I just couldn't believe that they would actually go through with that failed spycam.

I haven't said anything out of jealousy or being petty.

One extreme is trivializing the other is overblowing.  If someone had the ability to predict such things accurately to the month on a consistent basis then that would be amazing, but since these events have many unknowns it isn't reasonable to expect someone to predict accurately to the month on a consistent basis.  That's why (and just my opinion) I give respect for being right based on reasoning, and being super accurate is cool but secondary.

Plus not that it matters but IIRC STAGE famously declared that XB1 was winning the console war around December timeframe, later changing his mind and getting a PS4 so you know after this flip-flopping I'm going to give him kudos for the Kinect prediction but not treat him like the oracle of VGC.

I'm not saying you are. I said trivializing it gives that impression and you should be aware of it. I can logically deduce from your tone that you aren't jealous or bitter but some could easily perceive that. That's all I was saying.  Yes it would be amazing if someone could do it month to month. However none of us here can because as you said there are far too many variables which makes it that much more precious and respect worthy when we do it get it right imo. Secondary or not he got the exact month 3 months before the release of the console. In my book that deserves a pat on the back. You can bet your ass if you are ever that accurate in that far in advance I will be there to give you all the respect and memes you deserve. In fact if you are please send me a message and i will be there to shower you in praise.

Hey, what about all of us who called Sony's bluff with their "This Changes Everything" unveiling of Move when we said it was a lazy and half-hearted "me too" attempt at jumping on the motion control bandwagon?

At least M$ tried to support Kinect 2.0 and stuck with it even after the bad PR it received pre and post-E3. They looked at how successful Kinect was on 360 as a stand alone product and predicted (incorrectly) that a more advanced model would be a system-seller if it were a pack in and integrated with the hardware.

Have you not seen all the videos of people using Move to make sex tapes? I'm pretty sure that is an accurate example of "changing everything" even if it wasn't what they initially planned. Also the move+the new controller +project morpheus isn't half assed or half hearted and genuinely seems awesome. How it affects the future of gaming seems promising and it shouldn't be brushed off as finished.

Sony designed the Move a two years before the Wii launched. Look at their design videos on Youtube. They were on the camera motion control bandwagon a generation ahead of Nintendo.  Keep discrediting them. Keep it coming.

Sonys production notes predicted the Kinect would not be anything more than a glorfied mini-game device as they called the original Eyetoy. They said there needs to be a peripheral hence why they turned down the Kinect when given the chance to use a more powerful version of the same type of tech that they initially created. Concretely speaking they called it long ago that what Microsoft was boasting about was hollow at best. Microsoft didnt create a thing pertaining to it and their word counts for nothing. I have  the Kinect right now and I still attest to that truth that at best it is a media scroller, and not even a great one at that.

The Move/Eyetoy bundle need not be stated outside of a tandem force type of existence. They compliment one another and make the game development process far more intuitive. Less casual, sure...but everyone can get into it and have fun the way they want to.Its a shame that the games didnt match the tech. If a great devs were to make use out of it outside of their Sports game and Killzone 3 it would've shown even more how superior Sonys vision was.