Kinect-less XB1 fallout thread *spawn

[Deleted member 13524]

Now all Sony needs to do is announce a $50 price cut on the PS4 and include the PS Camera with every box. That would be the ultimate slap in the face to come from E3.

Naah, I think PS4 owners will flock to the PS Camera like crazy americans on black friday as soon as Morpheus is released.
There's really no need for Sony to bundle the PS Camera with the console. They can just lower the camera's price to ~40€ and let a big chunk of margins come in.

Of course, they will have to sell Morpheus+PS Camera bundles too.

 

[Bagel seed]

Completely agree. Why in hell didn't they spend money on more exclusives?? Who cars for 1080p if the best games are exclusive to your console!

Also, why in hell didn't they spend money to make a game for kinect...and I don't mean this ultra shitty kinect sports bla bla or whatever...a real AAA kinect game everyone wants.

It really shows that most success in electronic industry is down to chance and not having a smart plan...MS doesn't know why X360 was so successful and how they managed to equal the giant that is playstation...they just were lucky last gen...it is about games, nothing more, nothing less.

The suits wanted Kinect in the box so they could be the second coming of Wii. MS engineers wanted ESRAM just because. MS marketing execs wanted half a billion dollars dumped into TV and NFL because that's what their core audience wants.

Most of us here did see the writing on the wall the moment of the reveal though. It's funny to go and think back about how it all unfolded.

 

[Bagel seed]

Naah, I think PS4 owners will flock to the PS Camera like crazy americans on black friday as soon as Morpheus is released.
There's really no need for Sony to bundle the PS Camera with the console. They can just lower the camera's price to ~40€ and let a big chunk of margins come in.

Of course, they will have to sell Morpheus+PS Camera bundles too.

I agree. They seem to be very supply limited on the cameras anyways. I think it's smarter to keep stockpiling them for the VR bundle instead of making a console one.

 

[fehu]

That would be the ultimate slap in the face to come from E3.

Microsoft must learn to not make announcements before sony

 

[Gerry]

Now all Sony needs to do is announce a $50 price cut on the PS4 and include the PS Camera with every box. That would be the ultimate slap in the face to come from E3.

The $1B or so that would cost Sony would hardly chip into their massive profits.

 

[liolio]

Microsoft must learn to not make announcements before sony

OT but actually MSFT should learn to make no announcement of things that are not to ship soon after.

Examples:
-announcing universal apps when it is not coming anytime soon.
-removing windows licenses without unveiling a wave products to ship soon with a hard date.
-announcing tv functionality on the one that are in fact not ready at launch.
-and so on.

They have to learn from Apple, when you speak about it, you are about to "ship" it.

Another thing, the management is doing a lot of things right yet if they are serious about fighting Google and Apple they can let products like the Nokia 630 and 635 out... I was really interested in those products, but the Moto G was setting the mark and they missed actually pretty badly

 

[zupallinere]

So really, I don't see the removal of Kinect being a gamechanger for MS at all; the lower price gives them a short term gain but in the long-term they've hindered their prospects as devs aren't going to invest in Kinect and the great Kinect game everyone's waiting for will never get made.

Well the issue left is how is the consumer going to monetize, in their mind, the difference between the 2 systems when the XB1 becomes cheaper than the ps4 for however long that is. Will 1080 vs 762 or some other weird number be an issue for the average consumer if the xb1 is 50 or 75 dollars cheaper ?? I'm guessing some vicious cost cutting on the part of MS maybe all it takes to keep them in the running. Newer dx12 tools will make keeping the xb1 in the running cheaper for developers. I don't see the need for performance parity in multiplats as long as there is a decent difference in price ( as conceived by the consumer of course ). As long as the Live Gold subscriptions are plentiful enough and there is some form of ecosystem lock-in I think MS will be fine with the xbox division. Of course trying to predict what MS will do these days seems to be a fools errand as I have found from personal experience.

The new kinect was a big gamble by MS that didn't pay off. GPU Compute is a much smaller gamble for Sony but still is a bit of one. If nothing much comes of it then it would affect Sony in a similar if much less dramatic fashion than MS and the kinect. At that point there would be little to differentiate the 2 over time and then it's just a matter of who cuts costs the most and when. Maybe we get a faster next gen console out of it from both or either at that point.

 

[zupallinere]

So Kinect as an idea, at least as MS realised it, was flawed and dragged the console, as a simple games machine for the core gamer, down. As a lifestyle box, it had great potential which MS never backed.

This sounds right to me. If MS had waited till they could get the price of the kinect down along with enough computing power to create a stand alone box that could connect wirelessly with xb1 or pc or whathaveyou I think it could have been a much bigger deal. Instead it was an intrusion into the living room space instead of an enabler. MS tried to force it into a position as opposed to adapting it to add value to what was already there.

 

[zupallinere]

OT but actually MSFT should learn to make no announcement of things that are not to ship soon after.

Examples:
-announcing universal apps when it is not coming anytime soon.
-removing windows licenses without unveiling a wave products to ship soon with a hard date.
-announcing tv functionality on the one that are in fact not ready at launch.
-and so on.

They have to learn from Apple, when you speak about it, you are about to "ship" it.

Another thing, the management is doing a lot of things right yet if they are serious about fighting Google and Apple they can let products like the Nokia 630 and 635 out... I was really interested in those products, but the Moto G was setting the mark and they missed actually pretty badly

The moto E is soon to be out and hopefully just in time to ride the wave ( well decent swell ) of cheap unlocked phones that can used with different carriers with NO lock-in. Muricans pay way too much for cell service, broadband and medicine. At least there seems to be a technical fix for the cell issue

 

[Prophecy2k]

The problem with xb1 isn't and never was the Kinect. If you ever used it you would realize that it just isn't. Kinect works. And with a little patience works better than ever. The Kinect as a usp for the xb1 is simply the whipping boy of those who never used for it.

In reality the problem with xb1 is simply the strength of the GPU and/or the quality of the tools available to developers to make it sing. If the xb1 had an on par gpu so fanboys would not be able to run to digital foundry for validation of their console choice every week and gloat, sales would have stabilized at an acceptable rate and the Kinect would have stayed. If you were getting 1080p on average games at 60fps or even 30 fps on average... Kinect would have stayed.

Kinect was removed mot because the technology wasn't worthwhile but because of sales pressure on the console. That's really all this is.

There's a lot of "ifs" in here, and I would start with saying that I don't think that internet fanboys gloating about differences in game resolution/framerates had anything to do with the XB1s (relatively) poor market performance. The problems and dwindling post launch sales of the XB1 are directly a function of MS and the XB1 as a product itself.

The price, and thus Kinect was a huge part of that. Kinect certainly is a worthwhile technology, just not for gaming. It's far too limited as a gaming peripheral and MS would have been better off positioning Kinect2 as a core feature of the Win8 PC/tablet/notebook user interface. In Xbox it's redundant, and this hasn't evidenced anymore clearly than with MS' own first party development efforts, which have outright failed entirely for two generations now to give core gamers a convincing reason why it should be considered as a valuable NUI for games.

As a result MS launched the XB1 with a (percieved) $100 "kinect-tax" against a competitor with "cheaper" and demonstrably more capable gaming hardware. Compound that with the marketing/PR clusterfcuk that was MS' 2013 and you have a clear recipe for poor sales and a consumerbase that is still confused by both your messaging and ultimate product vision.

All-in-all, I consider the removal of Kinect absolutely crucial to the XB1's survival on the gaming market. However MS' isn't out of the woods. They now have the huge challenge ahead of them of figuring out how to effectively differentiate their console on the market.

I would say it should come down to games, but I don't buy that MS has the first party development chops to effectively do what Sony did with the PS3. Their internal teams don't have the history and synergy that Sony's do. Plus, buying up 3rd party exclusivity is going to be even more difficult, especially considering current soaring development costs, but moreso their current market position, which only looked to be getting worse prior to the obvious recent pricing adjustment.

 

[liolio]

The problem with xb1 isn't and never was the Kinect. If you ever used it you would realize that it just isn't. Kinect works. And with a little patience works better than ever. The Kinect as a usp for the xb1 is simply the whipping boy of those who never used for it.

Kinect impact the price and for all the great things it achieves it is in no way critical for the system: it is a gaming system and in most genres and more critically the games that sell the most have no use for it. It comes at a premium and core gamers does not care enough to pay for it.
No need to look further: the value proposal is not here for lot of people.

In reality the problem with xb1 is simply the strength of the GPU and/or the quality of the tools available to developers to make it sing. If the xb1 had an on par gpu so fanboys would not be able to run to digital foundry for validation of their console choice every week and gloat, sales would have stabilized at an acceptable rate and the Kinect would have stayed. If you were getting 1080p on average games at 60fps or even 30 fps on average... Kinect would have stayed.

With If I can put Paris in a bottle, and twice a day. Core gamers mostly do not care, kinect comes at a premium, that fact remains. How that would have changed sales, impossible to tell.

As for the tools well I'm not sure about what went wrong throughout the xb1 maturing but coming with a system running 3 OS, with an API that doesn't present yet all the benefits you usually get on a console is in no way an excuse or something costumers should be bothered with.

Kinect was removed mot because the technology wasn't worthwhile but because of sales pressure on the console. That's really all this is.

The other way around, it was forced into the system which came at a premium, customer showed few interest which translates in lesser sale and pressure on msft shoulder.
Whether technology is good or not is irrelevant if customers are unwilling to buy it.

I don't want Kinect, I now live in a 94 m2 house, yet the living room is not big. The Tv is pretty close from the couch, I won't move either or the low table in between to play games I won't buy... or play only every once in a while. I don't want to speak loud to my xbox either, end of the line. Sorry I've no interest. It seems plenty of people thinks the same.

It is damn simple, it applies to almost everything, I could have bought a car that does this that, etc. I did not as I don't care. it was not worth the money for me.
It works the other way around, I used to be attracted to tablets, after spending some time with a couple of them (including a real nice Ipad mini and a nexus 7) I think I'm never going to buy one, I prefer those new netbook. Lots of people thinks otherwise, I don't think they are fools, mislead, etc.

 

[blakjedi]

Now all Sony needs to do is announce a $50 price cut on the PS4 and include the PS Camera with every box. That would be the ultimate slap in the face to come from E3.

wouldnt that be something.

Wont happen though.

A $50 drop would essentially crush the One... to bits.

 

[blakjedi]

There's a lot of "ifs" in here, and I would start with saying that I don't think that internet fanboys gloating about differences in game resolution/framerates had anything to do with the XB1s (relatively) poor market performance. The problems and dwindling post launch sales of the XB1 are directly a function of MS and the XB1 as a product itself.

The price, and thus Kinect was a huge part of that. Kinect certainly is a worthwhile technology, just not for gaming. It's far too limited as a gaming peripheral and MS would have been better off positioning Kinect2 as a core feature of the Win8 PC/tablet/notebook user interface. In Xbox it's redundant, and this hasn't evidenced anymore clearly than with MS' own first party development efforts, which have outright failed entirely for two generations now to give core gamers a convincing reason why it should be considered as a valuable NUI for games.

As a result MS launched the XB1 with a (percieved) $100 "kinect-tax" against a competitor with "cheaper" and demonstrably more capable gaming hardware. Compound that with the marketing/PR clusterfcuk that was MS' 2013 and you have a clear recipe for poor sales and a consumerbase that is still confused by both your messaging and ultimate product vision.

All-in-all, I consider the removal of Kinect absolutely crucial to the XB1's survival on the gaming market. However MS' isn't out of the woods. They now have the huge challenge ahead of them of figuring out how to effectively differentiate their console on the market.

I would say it should come down to games, but I don't buy that MS has the first party development chops to effectively do what Sony did with the PS3. Their internal teams don't have the history and synergy that Sony's do. Plus, buying up 3rd party exclusivity is going to be even more difficult, especially considering current soaring development costs, but moreso their current market position, which only looked to be getting worse prior to the obvious recent pricing adjustment.

eh...

If the XB1 and PS4 were equally matched in performance with their same current architectures, I do not believe that sales would have played out the same way. People loaded up XB1 with bias from its reveal and Kinect is simply a big costly target.

Yes the kinect tax of $100 was there and is now gone. What are we left with? A less than PS4 capable machine ... how does that help the machines perception? Not at all..

XB1 at $399 with Kinect would be solid. $399 Without Kinect... why buy it?

 

[liolio]

Yes the kinect tax of $100 was there and is now gone. What are we left with? A less than PS4 capable machine ... how does that help the machines perception? Not at all..

Agreed not a bad place to be, for now Sony design choices have proven better. Looking at retail prices BOM have to be comparable, SOny pulls clearly ahead in perfs.

XB1 at $399 with Kinect would be solid. $399 Without Kinect... why buy it?

I think Medhi implies that the traditional 50$ rebate for the Christmas season will happen again.
They might be at 349$ this fall
I'm not convince Sony can or want to give 50 bucks away, quite the contrary in fact. They have the momentum it is MSFT that is under pressure.

EDIT
I meant not a GOOD place to be, but you (blackjedi) got it right it seems.

 

[expletive]

eh...

If the XB1 and PS4 were equally matched in performance with their same current architectures, I do not believe that sales would have played out the same way. People loaded up XB1 with bias from its reveal and Kinect is simply a big costly target.

Yes the kinect tax of $100 was there and is now gone. What are we left with? A less than PS4 capable machine ... how does that help the machines perception? Not at all..

XB1 at $399 with Kinect would be solid. $399 Without Kinect... why buy it?

Games, services, interface, ecosystem, apps, media functions, snap, HDMI in.

 

[blakjedi]

Agreed not a bad place to be, for now Sony design choices have proven better. Looking at retail prices BOM have to be comparable, SOny pulls clearly ahead in perfs.

From Eurogamer we derive a very simple lesson which shows that the Xbox team and MS as a whole has made insufferably bad decisions over the last two years:

"We've now reached the point where a £100 graphics card like the Radeon R7 260X can meet and even inch ahead of current PS4 results on a great many games, in the process leaving Xbox One for dust.

There's an irony here, too: the 260X has much the same graphics hardware as the Microsoft console - AMD's Bonaire GPU core. [Told ya Beta! LOL] There are differences - the R7 260X utilises all 14 compute units built into the architecture, whereas Microsoft disables two, and the R7 260X runs at higher clock speeds - but the gulf in performance is still stark, and overall we have to conclude that returning a 10 per cent GPU time-slice isn't going to close the gap on its own."

-http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-does-a-kinect-free-xbox-one-mean-more-processing-power-for-games

Had MS enabled the two additional cores with the speed increase or just the cores, a decision that they told us they deliberately decided NOT to do, they actually would have been at basic performance parity with PS4. No impact by Kinect and no additional cost. Instead they take very convoluted paths to simple conclusions and get burned every time.

 

[Scott_Arm]

From Eurogamer we derive a very simple lesson which shows that the Xbox team and MS as a whole has made insufferably bad decisions over the last two years:

"We've now reached the point where a £100 graphics card like the Radeon R7 260X can meet and even inch ahead of current PS4 results on a great many games, in the process leaving Xbox One for dust.

There's an irony here, too: the 260X has much the same graphics hardware as the Microsoft console - AMD's Bonaire GPU core. [Told ya Beta! LOL] There are differences - the R7 260X utilises all 14 compute units built into the architecture, whereas Microsoft disables two, and the R7 260X runs at higher clock speeds - but the gulf in performance is still stark, and overall we have to conclude that returning a 10 per cent GPU time-slice isn't going to close the gap on its own."

-http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-does-a-kinect-free-xbox-one-mean-more-processing-power-for-games

Had MS enabled the two additional cores with the speed increase or just the cores, a decision that they told us they deliberately decided NOT to do, they actually would have been at basic performance parity with PS4. No impact by Kinect and no additional cost. Instead they take very convoluted paths to simple conclusions and get burned every time.

Low yields aren't free.

Edit: In a world where manufacturing is perfect and doesn't have a dollar value, what you're saying might be true.

 

[XpiderMX]

Games, services, interface, ecosystem, apps, media functions, snap, HDMI in.

^ This.

IMO, even the Wii U could have had more sales with more and better games.

 

[liolio]

Games, services, interface, ecosystem, apps, media functions, snap, HDMI in.

Indeed still all that really come together in ~2 years which makes me question the selected timeline for the launch.
Once directx 12 is here, universal apps, and the next windows basically, definitely the xb1 will have commandable advantage over Sony wrt functionality. In the mean time it is disputable.

Living performances a side, Sony was clever to use Facebook for social interaction, no MSFT service can touch that. Streaming services are here too, it is really disputable what Windows inheritage brings as far as apps are concerned at the moment vs Sony clever choices.

MSFT has opened its policies as much as Sony for F2P games, or the browser I think. PSN+ advantages still look better to me. Really MSFT put itself in a bad spot.

 

[XpiderMX]

Indeed still all that really come together in ~2 years which makes me question the selected timeline for the launch.
Once directx 12 is here, universal apps, and the next windows basically, definitely the xb1 will have commandable advantage over Sony wrt functionality. In the mean time it is disputable.

Windows 8.1 Update 1 (current version) supports universal apps, and Xbox One will get an update for Universal apps this year.

I'm enjoying apps and games cross-buying between my Lumia and my Windows 8.1 PC. Xbox One is the only one platform in the MS ecosystem needing an update.

it is really disputable what Windows inheritage brings as far as apps are concerned at the moment vs Sony clever choices.

Windows apps will allow more options, and a more freedom to the user. Using practically any internet service wih apps will bring more options to the user.

MSFT has opened its policies as much as Sony for F2P games, or the browser I think. PSN+ advantages still look better to me. Really MSFT put itself in a bad spot.

Well, they are in a bad spot because you like more Sony and Playstation user and in your eyes they are in a bad position, I'm really happy with MS/Xbox because I'm in the Microsoft ecosystem.