Hey everyone, guess what? Don’t like the Kinect? Well you can now buy an Xbox One without it! Whooo. . .wait what? I thought that was one of the major reasons you bought the Xbox one, for all those great features for your Xbox one games. Features such as telling your Xbox One to play games, rewind films, pause films, fast forward films and err. . . shout out at Ryse to command my troops. I rather enjoy this feature even though my neighbours don’t so much when it happens at 3am.
So it seems that Microsoft have decided to sell their new console without the Kinect. It’s a bold move and one that could symbolize one of two things or most likely both of them. The Console (reason one) is not doing so well in sales, not having had the best start and many turning their heads up at it for numerous reasons. Or maybe Microsoft (time for reason two) have decided to listen to people that love them and have changed a few things. This includes nothing less than giving us the choice for a lower priced console without the camera and at the same price as its competitor the PS4. This may just please most of the same people that think the government is watching you through the Kinect and spying on you, watching you play Rayman in your underpants. I don’t do that!
It’s slightly disheartening nonetheless as Microsoft have stated numerous times that the Kinect is now better than ever and that it plays a huge part in many games. Yet so far, many of these games only feature a shouting or slight movement in ways of interaction with the game, which is kind of cool, but after some time I get tired of shouting at Ryse or find it extremely annoying when I lean forward while playing Thief and Garret ends up kissing some guard’s butt. I guess we don’t need these features when the PS4 has left its camera as a side feature. Microsoft wants to cater and give choice to its fans and potential buyers. It’s understandable as I feel the Kinect still needs work or should just stay for the games that will use its features dynamically and give a reason to use it other than to shout or awkwardly select something on the main menu as a controller is so dated. I liked the look of some older Kinect games and hopefully we will have some more similar to those, but better and more tweaked.
What would be the other reason for the change? We didn’t really ask for the Kinect to be included in the first place. I got on fine as well as many others without the damn thing. It’s sadly not ready to be accepted by the majority of players as it still needs more work. Still, games are coming for it. D4 is one to look out for and hopefully the Kinect will be ready for then. Along with other Kinect games still to come out but for now there aren’t many. . . or any of them truly that good.
It’s nice for the choice to allow us to buy or not to buy the silly camera, but it does undermine Microsoft’s confidence in its own products. I don’t mind, I’m happy with mine and shouting at it to play Ryan Gosling movies if I can’t be bothered to turn on my controller and pause it like a normal human being. Nevertheless, PS4 fan boys will no doubt love this in light of Microsoft’s long and “humiliating path or failure” amidst thinking “maybe we should listen to our gamers.” This happened with the PS3 and it had the direst start of any console with lots of hate. After so many years it still became a pretty good console. Will the Xbox One now head to the road in improvement? I hope so. . . since I have bought one! Still, at least the X-Box One has that lovely controller.