Not to be a naysayer but retailers have had the consoles price dropped to $330 for awhile now in the US with a kinect and there hasn't been significant change. I doubt the manufacturer dropping it to $399 will have significant impact. So I don't believe the price was a huge factor. However a lot of people did distrust/didn't want the kinect and weren't buying one because it was forced on them. Also people simply did not want to pay more for inferior hardware which is why retailers had to drop the price on the titan fall bundles in the first place. People also don't want to pay the same price for inferior hardware so again I think the price drop is moot. Unbundling kinect tho was a good move and might make a difference since so many people were apposed to it.

against it? no, just that they did it so they wouldn't get hammered by sony in teh console warz before sony goes down the plughole

kinect xbo wasn't selling enough apparently

That's an incorrect sweeping generalization.

I've yet to purchase an XB1 and now that it will be 399$, I am more likely to consider purchasing it. However, the same would hold true regardless of whether or not the Kinect was included. I don't buy for a second that Microsoft, couldn't afford to keep the Kinect in the package. Didn't they claim that it was integral to the Xbox One experience?

Now the only thing I might get the console for is Halo which isn't till 2015, maybe earlier if SO is actually good. I sure as hell aren't going to believe anything they say about the console now since even its "essential components" are "subject to change".

MS spends so much time feeding people the tale that Kinect was essential to the Xbox One experience, some people actually believed it.

Problem is they haven't proved it, and after June 9th, they never will

I meant to put spent, but yes basically. IF they couldn't do it when it was bundled, what chance in hell does it stand now? By making it an option, it becomes just an accessory and and extension. Maybe some seriously good and innovated games will come to utilize Kinect to its fullest, but I seriously doubt it.

I think its awesome haveing a kincet free x1

On the one hand taking out Kinect is a negative for me for two reasons:

1. I already own the console, IDGAF about a cheaper price.
2. Splitting the userbase = less incentive for people to make Kinect games.

But on the other hand the disappointment is stifled by another couple of key factors:

1. Kinect is still an awesome method of navigating the UI, and logging in via Kinect will never, ever get old.
2. We're 6 months in and we have really just one dedicated Kinect game it seems, ignoring that pile of shit Ubishit shat out for launch. So are we really missing out on much anyway?

This whole "well now what can xbone do to separate from ps4" stuff is silly though. People will buy one or the other based on what people always buy consoles for: games. Only now you can remove a huge price difference as a barrier.

LOL as it says in the original post Kinect 2.0 has no games when it was forced and now that it is optional you think it will? You do not need it for Voice commands (voice commands are worthless anyway) and motion navigation is also a fail.... The ONLY thing it would be good for it those times you misplace your controller and are watching Netflix or something. So you can start the next show without the controller. PSMove has a bigger future than Kinect as well with VR (which I am also not a fan of....)

If there is really no distinguishing feature of XBone, it becomes superfluous as a console in it's own right,
it's exclusive games may well have attraction, but everybody would be better off if MS just published those games on PS4.

As to the "video camera for voice recognition" thing, besides the obvious silly conflation of video with audio,
Sony can do the same exact thing, it's just a matter of improving the voice recognition which they already have,
which can be done thru ongoing software updates (and they have said that doing so is their exact plan).
Sony's voice recognition explicitly works with either their camera attachment OR any other microphone (e.g. headset).