Following the announcement of the Kinect-less Xbox One, which will be shipping on Monday, June 9 for $100 less compared to its Kinect-included counterpart, Microsoft’s director of programming for Xbox Live Lawrence “Larry” Hryb (aka “Major Nelson”) took to Reddit to express his thanks to all those who have given support to the company’s move of shipping a version of the Xbox One that doesn’t include the peripheral.
“It has been a busy few days, and I am /now/ just getting a chance to swing by Reddit. While I am in no way caught up on all the threads/comments of the news oft the past few days, I wanted to take a moment and say thank you. Everyone at Xbox appreciates the continued support of Xbox One. We really do,” Major Nelson said on a Reddit regarding the announcement.
“From you awesome Day One folks to those who just joined the fold, we are committed Xbox One and making Xbox One the best next gen console gaming platform. The guys and girls of this subreddit are awesome – the amount of PM’s I have received of support has been over whelming – and I have shared many of them with the team here, ” he added.
Major Nelson reassured that, despite there now being a Kinect-less version of the Xbox One, Microsoft will “still work to improve Kinect.”
In a recent interview, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of marketing and strategy Yusuf Mehdi explained that the decision to remove the Kinect from the Xbox One came about after a couple months of serious discussion. Microsoft officials then spoke to both publishers and developers alike over the past few weeks to update them of the change to the console.
“We have been working with our developers and game publisher partners for awhile trying to balance two goals,“ Mehdi explained. “One is the accessibility of the Kinect and the other is the desire for customers to onboard to Xbox One. They want both, a large audience of users and the best features. We feel this vision is balance the best of those goals.”
The Kinect-less Xbox One will start shipping on Monday, June 9 for$399, and it’ll include everything that’s been in the boxed package prior to the announcement (minus the Kinect of course).
[ Reddit ]