DisKinected.....

"The road may end, but you can make a 'U' turn." - Minu-Tshyeto K. Bidzimou

 As many of you are aware last week Microsoft announced that they will be launching an Xbox One WITHOUT the Kinect on the 9th of June. Now you would think that the press conference which is also to be held on the same day as the launch, would be the ideal place to announce  a Kinect-less Xbox One, especially when the retail sales figures are not as impressive as Microsoft expected, so much so that for obvious reasons ie no Kinect, the new Xbox One will be reduced in price. So I asked myself why announce it now? In my opinion there are three answers to this question:

• So that marketing can deal with the flak that Microsoft will be receiving online via social media etc  regarding this complete 180 degree u-turn in policy.....again! (Remember the DRM u-turn just after they announced the use of DRM at last years E3?!)
•  They also announced it now so that the controversy surrounding this decision will have blown away on the digital wind by the time E3 rolls around, therefore not overshadowing the expected multiple game announcements.
• To tie in with said game announcements, hedging their bets on predicted future unit sales based upon which games we the consumer want to play, primarily focussing on exclusive titles like Xbox flagship series HALO.

They, in my opinion, need to focus on making the aforementioned exclusives for the Xbox One only, as that has been the biggest mistake by they've made, publishing key exclusive titles on both the Xbox One and the 360, making loyal 360 owners say to themselves "Well I don't need to upgrade to play this key Microsoft  game, it will be out on my console soon!" An example of this would be Titanfall.

 However according to Microsoft's Chief Marketing & Strategy Officer Yusuf Mehdi, "...People have been more satisfied with the Xbox 360 than the PS3, so in that respect people have less of a need to upgrade...." He made that statement in an interview with Forbes magazine.
What that statement implies is that only PS3 owners upgraded to the PS4, when this is patently untrue! I myself know on a personal level at least four people who went from Xbox 360 to the PS4, as well as a number of followers on Twitter who did the same.

It also ignores the fact that many first time console gamers would have got the PS4 for Christmas last year! In my opinion, Microsoft's decision to remove Kinect is a desperation move designed to boost the ailing sales of it's much vaunted flagship next-gen console.