Goodbye Kinect Requirement
Microsoft announced yesterday that on June 9 its flagship console will drop in price to $399. The new bundle will retail without the Kinect, which is where consumers will find the $100.00 savings. Along with this announcement Microsoft will also rid gamers of the restrictions on Hulu, Netflix and Twitch. This means that it will no longer be required to have an Xbox Live subscription to use the aforementioned apps. This new price point puts the Xbox in direct pricing competition with the PlayStation 4. It is also important to note that “Free Games with Gold” will begin making its way to Xbox One with “Forza 5”, “Ryse” and other surprises making their way to the free side in June.
Is it a bit of a bounce back from post E3 evangelizing? Absolutely. Should we be concerned that there are still few games for both systems and they have sold millions of units? Maybe, but all launch consoles are like this, the stark back-pedaling is my only concern. June 9 is a good time to pull the trigger camera free folks!