This.

Blu-ray and BC were the only reasons I picked the PS3...and free online play, but to be fair, it started out as pretty lousy online play.

I still to this day haven't purchased a standalone Blu-ray player.

Brav-fucking-O on that answer. Seriously.
I will be getting both system but I do believe MS has a great deal of work ahead of them when it comes to winning back the trust of some people. I'm loyal to my love of games....not to a company.

I STILL can't believe that MS came out and half explained most of the features of the XBOX One. They had their private event, E3 and all the time in between the two events to do some explaining and clarification about the features of their system. It's weird that we "lost" the feature to share games and honestly we don't even know what that feature was all about in the first place. MS made that comment that it's a marathon to the next console generation and not a sprint. I figured that meant we'd be getting bits of info about the system here and there until launch day. Now I feel like they fucked up the DRM so bad they are almost afraid to announce of discuss things.

Probably not, I' prefer to just put you on ignore instead of dealing with your constant negativity towards a product, in said products specific forum. Enjoy your life as an astronaut!

I agree with you on these points. I really do. But, if the last generation was any indication:

- $100 difference at launch won't make much of a difference in 5 to 8 years. PS3 and 360 sales are practically equal, with PS3 just recently getting ahead after launching a year later. Within a year, I wouldn't be surprised if MS matches PS4 pricing. They'd be crazy not to (although... they ARE Microsoft, so...). At launch, both of these consoles are going to sell a ton. Sure, PS4 will sell more, but still. Tons will be sold to gamers. Then the prices will drop, and regular people will pick up one or both consoles.
- The PS3s better hardware amounted to exactly fuck all for them (all except Blu-ray, which was a media feature that had no real-world benefit to games, other than FF XIII and LA Noire being on a single disc instead of multiples.) The Blu-ray hardware specifically meant forced game installs, which was the biggest PITA I've personally encountered, not to mention massive "updates," which I think was fixed much later. So yes, the PS4 has better hardware, and I really hope it proves to be a benefit to games... but it didn't help the PS3.
- I hate Kinect. Seriously, fuck that thing. That said, if you look at the top 20 exclusives that Mr. Chmiel (sp?) posted (http://i.imgur.com/x7DktMe.jpg), the #1 Kinect game outsold the PS3s most popular franchise (Uncharted); 20.1m to 16.8m units. The four Kinect titles sprinkled throughout the top 20 combined, outsold the top four titles on PS3. So, yeah, we all hate Kinect. I'm with you. Fuck that thing. But it's a money-maker for Microsoft, hardcore gamers be damned.
- Not touching the last one. I'd be shocked if Mattrick didn't leave the company within a week of the XO launch. The guy is a complete moron and needs to be replaced, but I don't think it'll happen immediately. No one can defend that guy, though. Not even Ballmer.

To note that 20.1m wasn't Kinect Adventure sold, that was Kinects sold. Kinect Adventure being a free pack-in and all.

I do think the difference in hardware will be a little more noticeable next gen since they're running on nearly identical hardware. The PS3 was apparently a bitch whore to program for for the first few years.

Spottedfeather?

Take a closer look at that list for a second : Gears 2 outsold Gears. Forza 3 outsold Forza 2, Fable 3 just squeezed past Fable 2 (despite being far inferior). Uncharted 2 sold a million more copies than Uncharted did. Yet Kinect Sports sold nearly three times as many copies as Kinect Sports 2. Dance Central sold 2 million copies, and the sequel isn't even on the list. What does that tell you? To me, it means that lots of people bought a Kinect in the 2010 holiday season and then bought a few games to play on it. Then they discovered it sucked and a year later far fewer people were interested in playing games with the stupid hunk of junk.
And Microsoft still hasn't once explained why it's mandatory in their new system.

All excellent points, Decker. I'm not disagreeing. But even still, Kinect Sports alone outsold all but the top 4 PS3 exclusives. That's more than "just buying it to have some games," I would think.
They've said it's to ensure everyone has one so devs can push the Kinect utilization, but I agree that that's not enough. As others have said, bundling it is one thing, but requiring it to always be plugged in is a bit too much. I can see MS dropping that little requirement (quietly, so they can pretend it was never a requirement at all)... but yeah. Fuck Kinect.

It's a little late to remember if there were any combo deals with Kinect Sports, but I'm sure the draw of Wii Sports didn't hurt sales of KS for people that either wanted to compare the new, controller-less tech or those that never gave the Wii a chance.

I guess my point being is that just because a non-pack-in game sold reasonably well, it was still a complete outlier.

Many of my students are xbox gamers and not one of them have ever talked with me about playing kinect games. Yes, there have been millions of copies of kinect games sold as there have been millions of the Backstreet Boys cds sold.

That doesn't seem like a bad thing, if that's your comparison.

1. The Wii was never marketed as the one device you need in your living room like the Xbox One is being pushed as. The Wii was simply a device to play Wii (and GameCube) games on. Nothing more, nothing less. What made the Wii appealing to the non-gaming audience was it was the first console that your grandparents could get into due to its ease of use and its appealing price point. The Xbox One is not only a next-generation gaming console, but it's a gateway to all of your media. Is it worth $500? Yes and no. We don't know how much the Kinect costs, but at the same time, nobody was demanding a mandatory Kinect.

2. I don't think many skipped out on the Wii U due to a higher price point. There's a lot of reasons the Wii U has failed to take off, but I don't think the price points are one of them. The console's lack of entertainment might be the reason why people have skipped out. I own the console and I can tell you that there's not one title that demands a consumer to purchase the unit. Do I think Nintendo should lower the price when the PS4 and XO come out? Absolutely.

I think we've already established that gamers don't buy Kinect games; families do.
And there are a lot more families out there than gamers.

As mentioned previously, Kinect Adventures and Kinect Sports both came out at the launch of the hardware. Obviously people purchasing this new hardware wanted some games to go along with their new piece of technology.

There were other Kinect-based games (some exclusives, some not) like Dance Central 2, Just Dance 3, Kinect: Disneyland Adventures, and Zumba Fitness that all moved 2M+ units each. However, these were all released within that opening window of the Kinect's launch. Other Kinect-based games released in 2012 or later haven't sold as well. Most of them can't move more than 1M each.

However, those Kinect-based games that were non-exclusive? They all sold a fuck load more on the Wii. Zumba Fitness moved 7M+ units on the Wii. Each Just Dance game sold anywhere from five-to-seven times more on the Wii, Just Dance 3 nearly moved 10M units on that console. 2012's Just Dance 4 moved 1M units on the 360 compared to 7M on the Wii.

My wife loved the Wii due to the dance and workout titles on the Wii/Wii U. That's what got her on the Wii over the PS3 and 360 as well as her love for the Nintendo-exclusive franchises. While the games were actually better quality on the 360 with the use of Kinect and the ability to download DLC, she didn't care. As I mentioned before, she's pumped that the Xbox One has a Kinect because she has a use of one of my consoles.

While over 20M Kinects have been purchased, I do question how many of those owners will buy the XO due to it's mandatory Kinect. I'm still not sold on it personally.

[On the other hand, I think Sony should kill the PS4 Camera since nobody purchased the Move.]

Why do you hate Microsoft's vision?! All they're trying to do is save video gaming!

Lmao, plus, someone had to quote you!

The bundled Kinect is one thing about the new console that has never bothered me. I'd be buying a Kinect anyway since I've gotten a lot of use out of mine this generation and I'm excited to see what the upgraded tech can bring, so I prefer it to be bundled in. I can understand why a lot of people don't like it, but I can also understand Microsoft's desire to have it available for all developers to implement in all games if they want.

That's why, when they reversed all the other b.s. besides the mandatory Kinect, I was immediately back in for a day-one purchase. (The fact that I spent a couple of weeks trying to get back into PS3 gaming and not having any fun at all with it was another factor, I admit.)

Also, I have to agree that the constant console war-esque "booooo"ing that's going on here is a bit tiresome. Microsoft certainly brought that on themselves, no argument, but the hysteria is a bit much now in light of the reversal.

The kinect was great for kids. Sesame street tv & once upon a monster!

I look at Kinect as more family oriented than casual action base. As long as it was out there the majority of the games were dance, fitness and sports. When it came out the possibilites were touted as being endless and we were to see all sorts of games. Very very few action and FPS took advantage of it. I thought about getting one several times but just never saw the right games for it.

I appreciate the rational respectful response.

Price: I think the $100 price difference will overcome a lot of brand loyalty to Xbox and will give Sony a sizeable early lead this generation. Given how similar these boxes are, I think an early lead will will be a big deal. Sure, Sony caught up, but that was based on maintaining utter dominance in every other market and the strength of their exclusive franchises (an advantage I'm not sure MS can match). But I don't disagree that it's a long cycle and MS can make adjustments. Hell, if I'm MS, I fire a couple of people today and tell their replacements that I want a Kinect-free $400 box on my desk by Friday. And get me a spokesman who doesn't come off as a soulless corporate douche!

Hardware: If the PS3 really had better hardware, it rarely showed it because of its obtuse architecture, and it also had less RAM (sort of) than the 360, which caused a lot of third party games to look and run better on Xbox. This time, they have the RAM advantage and the processing advantage. I'm not sure how Blu-ray would have been the cause for game installs. I always assumed it was the limited RAM. Between data capacity, durability and high-def movies as a value add, Blu-ray was a net plus IMO.

Kinect: Yeah. As pointed out earlier, titles packed in with hardware can be misleading in terms of sales. I'm not going to look up numbers, but I know for instance that Wii Play and Wii Sports had absurdly high sales, likely for the same reason.

Don Mattrick: Get this man off the fucking stage. The dumb shit he says is killing your brand.

Some folks might have the impression that I'm anti-Xbox One, and in its current state, that's probably a fair assessment. But with backward compatibility out the window, I was fully 50:50 on these boxes until E3, when Sony answered every question I had with an answer I wanted to hear as a consumer, and Microsoft answered every question I had like they were in a position to be the fucking soup nazi of video games. They actually sounded just like Sony circa 2006 when they assumed you'd bend over and take it just because you owned a PS2.

So the Xbox has some problems, but they also still have some advantages. Again, there's clearly some brand loyalty out there...some of it even bordering on irrational, and I like what they've done with controllers (other than AA batteries). I'm especially intrigued by trigger vibration, which could have some cool applications. But Sony's real achilles heel is that they have yet to prove that they are remotely capable of running an effective online experience for gamers. If you go to the PSN store right now, it's an unnavigatable fucking mess.

So your theory is that people who play Kinect games are the same ones who bougth the Backstreet Boys CD's??

I'd like to see a venn diagram on that...bet it's higher than you'd think.

People who bought those CDs back in the day were generally women just a bit younger than me (I'm 40), who would have bought a Kinect either for their kids or because they thought it would be a weight loss program.

Hmm.

I'm going off memory here, but I thought the issue was that the Blu-ray drive had such a slow access speed (since it's new tech...like early CD burners) that it couldn't always play the games smoothly if they were being read off the disc alone. Hence the installs.