Kinectless Xbox One announced for 399.99

[nnodley]

ahaha a $399 ps4 + eye bundle would be hilarious right now

It would literally be a big middle finger to MS!  Basically would be sony boasting about being able to bundle them together at the same price point and still have much more powerful hardware.  Honestly I do expect a ps4/camera bundle sometime.  Sony themselves said they underestimated the cameras appeal for twitch.

[nnodley]

Sony just needs to release the games. The current price point is perfect for them, and their PR image has been utterly flawless. The Xbox One price drop will help MS, but it won't guarantee them the lead over the PS4.

Oh yeah agreed!  For me personally Sony has the better game offerings that I like and future offerings from their studios that I know I will love.  Only games that could possibly make me buy an xbox one at $399 is Sunset overdrive, quantum break, and gears of war.  But I still wouldn't do that.  The absolute max I will pay for xbox one is $250, maybe  $299.

[7H3]

wont be too long before you can get an XONE and kinect separately for less than the price of the original bundle

[Raven]

Why do these Xbox fans on VGC keep saying shame like after E3 it will be clear Microsoft offers the best games and whatnot...

Do they forget Sony is having a press conference as well? They're saying dumb shame like this before they even watch the conferences.

I guess it doesn't matter, because even if Sony drops megaton after megaton, and Microsoft shows Kinectimals the entire show, they will still come up with battleship excuses as to why MS won and whatnot. I hate blind, biased and idiotic fanboys like that. So irritating. I should stop going on VGChartz...

The past couple of days I've been leaning towards Neogaf...They are a tad bit Sony biased, but I've seen even the most loyal Sony supporters on that site call Sony out on their battleship and vice versa with MS/Ninty supporters.

Add me on Neogaf if you want - Riderz1337

It's the same rhetoric they've been spewing for almost a year now. "PS4 has no games". They think that this E3 will be the same as last year's, as far as games go, without even considering how many announcements Sony made throughout the year and even prior to E3. Microsoft blew their load at one event. Of course it was going to seem awesome. E3 was the one time they made a significant showing all year. Now imagine if they had spread it out over 5 or 6 events. Wouldn't have been that impressive, would it?

The X1 reveal event was terrible. They made a whopping two announcements at Gamescom. One for Fable Legends, a game rumored to not be releasing until two years after it was revealed, and the other was Fighter Within, which was total garbage. They had nothing new to say for the rest of the year. That's not even pointing out the fact that all of the games they showed at E3 that have released so far have fallen short of the hype. In some cases it was comical.

I mean come on. Listen to them. Every game Microsoft announces is "super good holy crud game of the year" material. Yet they behave as if Sony has none of their own studios. They neglect to bring up anything Sony may do. As you said, it's as if Sony isn't even having a conference and that nothing they announce is going to be good.

[Raven]

Was thinking about it and I'm not sure how much this is actually going to make a difference. Let's look at a couple examples here.

The March NPD. PS4 won by 60k. How was that even possible? Titanfall had released, the Xbox One Titanfall bundle gave the game away, major retailers like Wal-Mart dropped the price by $50, the PS4 was available for online purchase only at Amazon for the first week and most retailers ran out of stock to sell online at various point during the month, some retailers never had online stock to sell, and its big game that month had only half the time to move consoles as X1's big game. Yet it beat the X1 by 60k?

Amazon UK. Boy did Microsoft have to pull out all of the stops for a short lived and largely irrelevant victory. It took a nationwide permanent price drop, Titanfall, the Titanfall bundle, a temporary price drop to bring the price in line with the PS4, and Amazon UK being one of only three retailers doing it in order to have the X1 overtake the PS4 in hourly sales. Even then, after awhile the consoles bounced back and forth over each other. So let me say that again. It took the Xbox One with a Kinect and free copy of Titanfall being the same price as a PS4 to finally beat it in hourly sales on the site of a major online retailer that was one of only three doing it while others like GAME, a major video game retailer, did not.

So, how do we like the odds of the Xbox One being the same price as a PS4 without Kinect and a free copy of Titanfall?

[darkknightkryta]

I personally think the overall picture for MS at E3 is a bit more worrisome.  I'll say MS will show off games, but I don't think any of them will be ready before 2015.  Ms must have put this price cut in effect to tie them over.  And what happens if it fails?  I'm sure MS is just racking up the debt for minimal gain.

[Raven]

I personally think the overall picture for MS at E3 is a bit more worrisome.  I'll say MS will show off games, but I don't think any of them will be ready before 2015.  Ms must have put this price cut in effect to tie them over.  And what happens if it fails?  I'm sure MS is just racking up the debt for minimal gain.

What should be even more worrisome to them is Sony's response if they feel they need to. Sony could respond by adding the Camera to the $400 package, dropping the price to $350, or having both packages available. We already know that Sony really isn't losing very much on each console. A one year sub to PS+ or the purchase of a $60 first-party title covers the loss. The cost of the system will decrease but even better than that is that the console is already highly demanded. That means it's more likely that the things which cover their costs will be picked up. They're in a much better position to play with the price than they were last generation. They can make a move without costing even more money on top of the several hundreds per console they were already losing on the PS3.

Honestly, this was terrible timing on Microsoft's part. A week before E3, maybe even a few days, would have been much better. They just essentially gave Sony one month to figure out how they want to play this out and now may be killing their sales this month of their current packages. They just put themselves in a position to lose a fair amount of money. Plus, they'll really be up the creek without a paddle if this move of theirs doesn't succeed in allowing them to pull ahead at least in North America. If all this manages to achieve is relative sales parity over here, then the X1 is really going to be hurting when the PS4 gets an inevitable price drop.

More than that, it will pretty much be the final indication needed that the PlayStation 4, barring any miraculous changes, has won the generation globally with pretty much no room for doubt. Even if Microsoft were to succeed in taking and holding North America it won't be by the gap of the last generation and would be a hollow victory since the X1 will be thrashed everywhere else while fighting to maintain its lead here.

[7H3]

Overall very good news, but man MS pr team just makes me like them less and less. I mean I wanted to get an Xone at some point... but every time I read their PR stuff I feel less inclined.

[BananaKing]

Uhm, talk about desperation.  April NPD and world wide sales must be freaking horrendous.  Now May sales will even worse by this announcement.  And not to mention the ps4 is still the better deal.

We had Xbox One, TF, and kinect bundles going for $450 or less and that didn't help MS at all.  I only see this being a very very temporary boost in June maybe July.  Then holidays will help.  But Xbox One is dead outside of USA and UK. 

I do wonder if sony is now contemplating a $350 ps4 and or a $399 ps4 and camera bundle if X1 starts gaining some traction in NA.  Both of those are probably possible now as the ps4 components are probably a little less to buy, but still might not be the best to do it yet.  If the ps4 still wins every NPD they will wait though.

this is effectively a 100$ price cute because nobody gave a shame about kinect anyways. they will advertise the 399$ price tag heavily. it will boost sales more than TF did. i wonder if they will even bundle a free game with it too.

[BananaKing]

It would literally be a big middle finger to MS!  Basically would be sony boasting about being able to bundle them together at the same price point and still have much more powerful hardware.  Honestly I do expect a ps4/camera bundle sometime.  Sony themselves said they underestimated the cameras appeal for twitch.

naa, PS Eye is selling quite decently, wouldnt be surprised if its at 1.5 million or even 2 million now. its a pure profit sell for them, one that will likely sell at least 10 million when all is said and done. i doubt they would want to kill off that profit. bundle a game that has already made a profit like KZ:SF for free would still be an attractive deal.

[Legend]

naa, PS Eye is selling quite decently, wouldnt be surprised if its at 1.5 million or even 2 million now. its a pure profit sell for them, one that will likely sell at least 10 million when all is said and done. i doubt they would want to kill off that profit. bundle a game that has already made a profit like KZ:SF for free would still be an attractive deal.

PS Camera is great. I'd love if it was included in every SKU down the line. There's a lot of potential with that device.

[Raven]

Xbox One without Kinect doesn't look like it's coming back into the Top 100 on Amazon. It's down to 131 and approaching the hours where it drops the most. Famousmortimer pointed out, the same thing I was saying, that the Titanfall bundle shot up to #1 the day it was available for pre-order which was around 3 weeks before it actually released. It also managed to maintain itself in the top ranks up until release. This $400 Kinect-less package has proven nowhere near as demanded thus far.

[ethomaz]

Now this announce 2 months before release makes sense... 115k.

[7H3]

Sony needs a lot more than just the order to win this holiday

[ethomaz]

Sony needs a lot more than just the order to win this holiday

Well... what MS have for holiday?