Gamestop Reports Increased Interest In Xbox One With Kinect Ommission

During a recent post-earnings conference call, Gamestop president Tony Bartel talked about how only nine days after the announcement from Microsoft, the $399 Xbox One without Kinect is generating a lot of interest.  During the call, Bartel had the following to say:

“I definitely think we’re already seeing in our stores with our reservation program as well as dialogue with PowerUp Rewards [members that] there’s a stronger demand as a result of the price drop”.  “The good news for us is… we’ll sell a lot more units.”

There has been a lot said about Microsoft’s decision to omit the Kinect from the Xbox One package, but the simple fact is that Microsoft is conceding the early lead to the PlayStation 4 and every prospective customer is important when you’re trying to be the console leader.  Having the higher console count worldwide gives the platform greater sway with game companies that could be considering a singular platform for exclusivity instead of multi-platform.  Microsoft are in a position to simply outperform Sony ’til kingdom come because, as a company, Microsoft has significantly more money and talent to throw at the Xbox.  That’s not to say that the Xbox One is a platform that will see unlimited amounts of money thrown at it but that Microsoft can and will do whatever it takes to see their new console see its true potential.  With all of the qualms about opting for GDDR3 and an ESRAM module to handle the graphics and the confusion over Xbox One policies, Microsoft’s recent announcement of a $399 Xbox One console is yet another back-step from the original vision of Xbox.  Still, it’s better to saturate the market with the core console first then create reasons to buy a Kinect later with excellent motion and voice-controlled games – something Microsoft and partners haven’t quite found their stride with yet.

Xbox One Digital Games To Get “Competitive”, Games For Gold On The Way

Xbox Live’s Major Nelson, aka Larry Hyrb, made a comment in regards to a fan who contacted him via Twitter, asking about special preorder opportunities that were offered by the likes of retailers but not on Xbox Live.  Hyrb makes comments regarding Microsoft’s forecast for digitally distributed content, which hasn’t been clearly outlined yet but Hyrb says “we’ll share the goodness… but not now”.  In the little that was said, Microsoft seems to be planning to open up digital preorders on their Xbox Live platform in the future.  Seems like something we might have already been privy to but has yet to be implemented.  But the good news doesn’t start and end there.  There is also consideration of offering “competitive” deals for digitally distributed content.  The absence of material manufacturing, shipping, and retail stocking certainly would make the process of making games cheaper.  Having top-tier games available for as much as $10 off of disc versions would likely encourage droves of players to buy digitally.  In turn, groups like GameStop who rely heavily on game and console sales would be a little strained to follow suit, but eventually this is the way games are going to go.

Having digital games makes it impossible to have issues like “disc cannot be read” errors or broken discs entirely.  You cannot lose a digital copy of something and can always uninstall it and reinstall it as long as you use your Xbox Live Gamertag (or Microsoft Account).  In addition to that, your Gamertag is now portable, allowing you to pull a already-purchased game from Xbox Live even on a friend’s Xbox One (of course, your Gamertag is the one that is granted access to that game on other consoles).  Microsoft have also stated that, while their “Family Share” system was cut because of the outrage against the heavy focus on digital distribution, the share system would be brought back in a future Xbox update for digitally acquired games.

To cap off the news, Larry Hyrb also went on to talk about the Games for Gold program that launched on the Xbox 360 last year.  Within the next few months Games for Gold could be launching on the Xbox One, where those with the Xbox Gold subscription will be able to download free games.  Typically there have been two games released for free per month, one in the first two weeks of the month and a second during the last two weeks.  This program is confirmed to come to Xbox One, we’re all just waiting for the official kickoff.