In my opinion, the Kinect served no damn purpose and I am actually glad MS made this decision!

Righting an obvious wrong is hardly very smart.

This seems to be a common reaction to the Kinect free XB1.  The reality is that the "Premium" XB1 with Kinect will continue to sell.  Sure, during peak periods like the holidays, the cheaper version of every console sells really well.  My guess is that during other periods of the year, the Kinectless version will outsell the Premium version 2 to 1.  So, millions of people will continue to add the Kinect experience.  At some point, when M$ starts selling the Kinect as an add on, that too will be a holiday gift to many of the Kinectless XB1 owners.  No one will argue that there isn't enough (almost any) games for the Kinect today, but I think we will see a fair bunch of games come out in the next 2-3 years.  THey will be mostly the same party games and such, but there is a market for that stuff.  You never know, maybe someday there will be a really cool game (probably from an indie developer) that causes people to want it.  Also, as more time passes, the voice controls and camera features of the XB1 will seem more natural to people and the masses will want that too.

As far as the graphics go, I am still waiting to be impressed with a real difference that matters while playing a game.  The only time it seems to matter is when people are comparing screen shots in a forum.

I don't yet own an Xbox One. But I will eventually.

The only reason I'd say I'm against the unbundling of Kinect is that it fragments the user base. Which in turn gives developers less incentive to create a game that is unique to Kinect.

That being said, even Microsoft couldn't make convincing game software at launch to justify Kinect (shame on them). So why would a third party developer go above and beyond to innovate?

Overall, I think offering the choice to the consumer is a positive thing. It means MS is getting back to the early Xbox 360 days where they give everyone a ton of options to choose from and let them decide what's best. And when they do that, the masses will determine the best choice.

Cause its MS. Anything they do gets buried by fanboys making arguments about changes to a system they would never buy.

Just a note about this. Kinect had a chance last gen to show promise and for the most part didnt. I dont see how the new Kinect has anything to build off of. Now there seems to be some cool voice things you can do with it, but I see almost no use for a camera.

There is just one problem with that theory tho. The "Premium" version with kinect is currently being sold cheaper by retailers than the $399 kniectless version. I agree tho that it will probably outsell the kinect version eventually. If it stays as is now tho by the time holidays hit the "Premium" version which is currently the Titanfall bundle will still be the cheapest version. The main problem is the Software. Titanfall was said by many to be a game changer but was ultimatly over-hyped and couldn't manage to put XBO in the lead for any month since TitanFall's launch even after a significant price drop that put the consoles market value at $330 in the bundle. So they need to have an awesome E3 and bring games that arguably better than titanfall or they are screwed.

Uh sorry but no, I'm not about to pass up a quality controller from MS, Sony, or Nintendo, and buy some shit 3rd party controller. At best maybe someone will eventually put out an adapter like they did last gen, but even that was spotty at best with performance and input delays.

MS did help Respawn with development of Titanfall. Check out The Final Hours of Titanfall. I know about the engine, it also goes into great detail there. Without MS stepping in and helping, Respawn would have had to give the IP to EA in exchange for more money. Basically if Titanfall were multiplatform right now, the trade off would be EA owns the IP. Which means it quickly turns into shit. Now, if MS were just publishing games for PS4, why would they have stepped in and done that? Or paid for DR3's development? That's 2 good next gen games we'd be missing. LOL @ not adding popularity. What do I give two shits about popularity? I want good games.

The voice recognition is great and so is the logging in via the camera. Both are things the hardware does.

It never fails to surprise me how little people actually read in threads instead posting their opinions and learning nothing from others.

MS's poor support of the K2.0 created a false equivalency between it and the 100$ price gap. Removal of the device is only a temporary solution, realistically the XB1 can only compete against the PS4 on the matter of preferences. A battle its already practically lost, even if it had the mutiplat advantage, which it doesn't.

Long story short: it is a threat to PS4 in NA and WiiU globally now. Like a real threat. This in turn makes Nintendo fans insecure that they will be last all the sooner and the NA PS fanbase insecure about their turf being in question.

I don't buy that Xbox fans are saying that it is bad MS took it out: most of us know it was only holding the brand back and choice/cheaper price is always better for the consumer.