Cheaper $400 Xbox One coming sans Kinect as consoles face pressure from low-cost streamers
Microsoft on Tuesday announced that consumers will soon be able to purchase a cheaper, Kinect-less Xbox One bundle and won't be forced to subscribe to Xbox Live Gold in order to use media services like Netflix or MLB.TV on their consoles, bending to price pressure from Sony's PlayStation 4 and streaming boxes such as the Apple TV.
The announcements come six months after the Xbox One's release, during which time sales have lagged behind Sony's less costly offering. Microsoft's new Xbox One lineup will start at $399 without the motion capture camera, the same price as Sony's entry.
In addition to driving up the Xbox One's price, the second-generation Kinect has drawn the ire of early adopters thanks in large part to reliability issues. While the original Kinect relied on technology licensed from Israeli semiconductor firm PrimeSense -- acquired late last year by Apple for $360 million -- the Kinect 2.0 uses sensors developed in-house at Microsoft.
Alongside the SKU change, Microsoft will drop its longstanding requirement that users who wish to use their Xbox to stream media content from the internet pay for a $60-per-year subscription to Xbox Live Gold. Some believe that additional cost has made casual users, who may not play online multiplayer games, turn instead to set-top boxes like the Apple TV that cost less than $100 and boast a wider catalog of streaming options.
Apple is believed to have sold more than 10 million Apple TV units in 2013, an even pace with the Xbox One, which has shipped 5 million units in its six-month lifespan. The next-generation Apple TV, which could debut this fall, is rumored to bring support for gaming and third-party controllers that would place it in even more direct competition with the Xbox and PlayStation.
The new Xbox One bundle will be available on June 9, while preorders are available now, and changes to Xbox Live will take effect "in early June." The Kinect 2.0 will be made available as a standalone purchase this fall.
The announcements come six months after the Xbox One's release, during which time sales have lagged behind Sony's less costly offering. Microsoft's new Xbox One lineup will start at $399 without the motion capture camera, the same price as Sony's entry.
In addition to driving up the Xbox One's price, the second-generation Kinect has drawn the ire of early adopters thanks in large part to reliability issues. While the original Kinect relied on technology licensed from Israeli semiconductor firm PrimeSense -- acquired late last year by Apple for $360 million -- the Kinect 2.0 uses sensors developed in-house at Microsoft.
Alongside the SKU change, Microsoft will drop its longstanding requirement that users who wish to use their Xbox to stream media content from the internet pay for a $60-per-year subscription to Xbox Live Gold. Some believe that additional cost has made casual users, who may not play online multiplayer games, turn instead to set-top boxes like the Apple TV that cost less than $100 and boast a wider catalog of streaming options.
Apple is believed to have sold more than 10 million Apple TV units in 2013, an even pace with the Xbox One, which has shipped 5 million units in its six-month lifespan. The next-generation Apple TV, which could debut this fall, is rumored to bring support for gaming and third-party controllers that would place it in even more direct competition with the Xbox and PlayStation.
The new Xbox One bundle will be available on June 9, while preorders are available now, and changes to Xbox Live will take effect "in early June." The Kinect 2.0 will be made available as a standalone purchase this fall.
Comments
That was quick. And people say the WiiU is a failure. Never mind that the Xbone and PS4 have pathetic hardware and orwellian use demands.
That was quick. And people say the WiiU is a failure. Never mind that the Xbone and PS4 have pathetic hardware and orwellian use demands.
People are saying the WiiU is a failure because it is a failure. The Xbox One and PS4 are both selling pretty well. Reviews are also very positive. Why must you always be so negative about everything? Now that Microsoft changed that stupid policy to force people to subscribe to Xbox Live Gold just to watch Netflix I might actually consider one. I like to play games on occasion but the the pay for online play was always a deal killer. I never spend enough time with games to get good enough to take on those 14 year olds who can kick my ass so prefer to just play single player type games.
And there you go again.
Ha! Same here. Almost feels embarrassing jumping into multiplayer sometimes. “Shouldn’t I be doing better than this?”
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That was quick. And people say the WiiU is a failure. Never mind that the Xbone and PS4 have pathetic hardware and orwellian use demands.
what do you mean by pathetic?
You mean less expensive.
nothing to do with Apple, everything to do with SONY and the PS4 - they basically matching the PS4.
what do you mean by pathetic?
It’s archaic crap! You can build a $500 PC with better hardware (with greater optimization for graphics using hardware not even designed for it) than the Xbox One out of two year old parts. And remember the console is stuck with that hardware then for 5-7 years while PC hardware continues to improve.
I don’t have a CPU chart, but you can bet the difference is even more stark there; computer CPUs are generally far better.
Agreed. Microsoft never entered the handheld market, as they were rumored to do, after all.
But I wouldn’t sell Apple short come the end of this year…
Ah, no. The PS4 is doing very well, and the xbox One is doing well, but not as well as the PS4. This has nothing to do with anything the article hopefully stated. It's a pure competitive play against the PS4. Anything else said is pure bunk.
The WiiU is a failure, as they only sold 2.73 million units all of their fiscal 2013 year, whereas Sony has already sold close to 8 million PS4s, and Microsoft has sold over 5 million XBox Ones.
You don't understand the point to console gaming. It's not to have a computer in the living room, or wherever the big screen Tv is. It's to have a device specifically made for gaming and streaming. And that's what consoles do best.
You don't understand the point to console gaming. It's not to have a computer in the living room, or wherever the big screen Tv is. It's to have a device specifically made for gaming and streaming. And that's what consoles do best.
Exactly. Consoles don't require any maintenance beyond some updates once in a while. As long as your controllers are charged anytime you want to play a game or even watch a netflix video it is extremely easy to do so. Consoles are a simple, no hassle type of way to play games easily on your TV and home theater and a computer is a bag of hurt to try and come close to the same level of ease.
Once again MS fails to stay true to their ideals.
Windows shouldn't have a start button, and Kinect should stay compulsory.
Oh certainly; that’s not in question.
Then how does a PC do it better? Because PCs do it far better without even trying. You’d think a device specifically made to do a thing would be the best at doing it.
What I don’t mind is that the WiiU isn’t (stated to be) as graphically impressive as the Xbone or PS4, since Nintendo doesn’t really care about that. They care about the quality of their properties, the gameplay, and the means of interaction over anything else. The fact that they can do 1080p60 when Microsoft and Sony are often limited to 720p30, even for 1st party and AAA games is just a plus.
EDITS.
It’s archaic crap! You can build a $500 PC with better hardware (with greater optimization for graphics using hardware not even designed for it) than the Xbox One out of two year old parts. And remember the console is stuck with that hardware then for 5-7 years while PC hardware continues to improve.
I don’t have a CPU chart, but you can bet the difference is even more stark there; computer CPUs are generally far better.
Agreed. Microsoft never entered the handheld market, as they were rumored to do, after all.
But I wouldn’t sell Apple short come the end of this year…
Gaming PCs and consoles are two different things. Refer to melgross post.
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This has nothing to do with low cost streamers. One, they changed who was in charge of Microsoft and he's giving fans what they wanted. This version won't include the Kinect and offers fans a different choice. Not to mention that it matches the price of the PS4. And they're both selling very well. Who gives a crap about what kind of PC you can build anyway? PC gaming doesn't matter imo.
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Then how does a PC do it better? Because PCs do it far better without even trying. You’d think a device specifically made to do a thing would be the best at doing it.
Outside of better performance it is subjective. When I come home after work I grab my PS4 controller and I start playing almost immediately from my couch. For me this is "better" than sitting on my desk playing games on my Mac/PC.
I don't know where you are getting your information but the PS4 is not limited to 720p 30fps. Many PS4 games run at 1080p 60fps.
What I don’t mind is that the WiiU isn’t (stated to be) as graphically impressive as the Xbone or PS4, since Nintendo doesn’t really care about that. They care about the quality of their properties, the gameplay, and the means of interaction over anything else. The fact that they can do 1080p60 when Microsoft and Sony are limited to 720p30 is just a plus.
Except that you are completely wrong.
http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/168630-xbox-one-graphics-output-in-900p-worse-than-ps4s-1080p
Update, 3:47PM ET, 10/30/13: A new tidbit of information was tweeted by Mark Rubin, a developer of Infinity Ward, that stated an upcoming Call of Duty expansion, Extinction, will run natively run on the PS4 at 1080p, but will be upscaled to 1080p from 720p on the Xbox One. Rubin noted that both games run at 60fps, which sounds like the Xbox One upscaling is due to that target frame rate.
Several games in fact offer 1080P 60FPS on the PS4
http://www.ign.com/wikis/xbox-one/PS4_vs._Xbox_One_Native_Resolutions_and_Framerates
At least Nintendo gave their fans a HUGE leap in hardware and software capabilities.