So,
the mandatory Kinect is no more, Microsoft have once again made a U-Turn on its
original next-gen plan. Kinect has gone from being an integral component to an
optional peripheral. Like most other Xbox One gamers I haven’t even used the Kinect
for much more than showing off (and the odd dashboard navigation when my
controllers have run out of battery.
That
being said – it is a good piece of hardware and holds far more potential than
the original ever did (both in accuracy and speed).
For
Microsoft this solves many problems: the price differential with PlayStation 4
has now been addressed, while internal resources dedicated to Kinect processing
can now be returned to game developers.
However,
on the flipside, the original vision for Xbox One as a multi-faceted all-in-one
entertainment system as well as a games machine now lies in a much less
coordinated manner than ever – unless this was always the plan (which we doubt).
Kinect
was at the heart of everything that made Xbox One different and without it
we're left with a machine that offers pretty much the exact same proposition as
PS4. In fact, it’s a horrible chance of pace for a company that always stripped
its rivals in the race for innovation. Just two years ago Sony were doing
everything they could to match their American counterparts but now it seems
that the more Xbox changes, the closer it becomes to the PlayStation design
choices from launch.
This
week's announcements are all about levelling the playing field with Sony. The
price is the same, Games with Gold moves closer into alignment with PlayStation
Plus, while non-gaming services are also like-for-like thanks to the removal of
the almost criminal payment requirements that saw users charged for the privilege of using
Internet Explorer, Skype and even non-Microsoft services like YouTube and
Netflix.
Here
at Rajakaru Games we appreciate that Microsoft is finally listening.
This
market repositioning was a must for our beloved console. Microsoft’s vision for
an entertainment system certainly wasn’t a bad decision in principle but the
implementation and demand for this hardware was misplaced.
Kinect
is the main gateway to the media functions of the Xbox One and without it the
hardware looks more like the set-top boxes it was trying to replace rather than
the state of the art ideas that it hasn’t fully realised.
Statistics
showed that for many users, the Xbox 360 was being utilised more for media
streaming than it was for actual gameplay. This was the main reason for the
strategy they tried desperately to maximise but unfortunately the impact didn’t
really take off.
We've
seen Oculus Rift, we've experienced Sony's Project Morpheus prototype but we've
still not seen Microsoft's 'Fortaliza' hardware. Envisaged as a Kinect-powered
augmented reality concept, Microsoft saw it as the penultimate stepping stone
in console technology before the cloud took over, rendering new client-side
hardware obsolete. These industry changes and innovations certainly mean we can
expect some new gameplay styles over the course of this console lifecycle and,
you never know, Microsoft might just U-Turn again.
The
good news for Microsoft is that games and content will always trump hardware
spec. This week’s Halo 5 tease was short on details but at least re-introduced
a key title with an immense level of anticipation alongside it, and the E3
line-up should be strong. Beyond that we understand that Microsoft isn't done
with the cloud, and that games are being built around Azure that go beyond the
utilisation's we've seen thus far.
We definitely
won't see a total rethink of the Xbox One system, but at least the focus will
be where it should have been from day one - on the games.
