Can Xbox One Really Be This Bad? Yes. And I Know Why.

"[Kinect] is really something that we feel, once you take out, lots of people will go, 'Gosh, I really liked that, I got used to it, and I'm going to miss it,'" he said." I think the more consumers get exposed to it, the more they use it, they'll realize what a great, amazing experience it is."

That comes from Xbox Group Program Manager David Dennis, who in the same interview managed to cast doubt on the future of VR technology, comparing it to the flash-in-the-pan 3D TV fad of yesteryear.

Fire this man immediately.

If you wonder why the Xbox One can be so bad, can be so under-powered, can be so chained to Kinect, can be so pretentiously priced -- one can presume a large piece of the fail pie the Xbox One is made of can be the ingredients of this man.

Unreal. That quote is a special kind of bad, the kind I haven't seen in a long time. That's how you kill a brand.

Source: Ars

A MS employee publicly supporting Kinect? What a surprise...actually its not. You make bad threads.

Xbox One sucks, everybody knows that.

You should lock your own thread.

Microsoft despite their on going overall success has been like this in EVERY area for the last 5-6 years. I think thier realization that apple/google have essentially stolen a large portion of their market has driven them to play a game of catch up that they just can't win.

Which leads them to take these crazy routes. I can see what they are trying to achieve however.... but everything they do is held back by trying to become apple... we don't need 2 apples.... they have the monopoly on premium technology. I want Mcirosoft to continue its path but stop nickel and diming us. make your operating systems be it phone/pc/tablet OPEN more like google/android ....

Its like if Google came along with android and went "basically we will do what MS use to do with PCs... but for some reason decided not to now".

Android is what windows was to PCs... options options options.

wtf happened to Microsoft....

Come on dude, blatant fanboyism. Its fine if you don't like the games and nothing about Kinect interests you. But outside of the price the One has very good games and more coming. Graphics are good and will improve. The one thing the One needs is a 100-150 price drop. Nothing more. 4 million in 4 months with a hot game just released, constantly updating new features into the OS and finally releasing Kinect centric games like Kinect Sports Rivals and apps like Twitch broadcasting and indie games on the way. The One will be fine going forward. Juts gotta get that price down ASAP.

No way, my friend. You should demand that this man be taken off of product management duty. He's made it clear that he's okay with products that people may miss, not with products that people will crave.

YOU should expect product managers to expect the very best, not something that one may miss once it's gone. That is truly pathetic, and I'd feel comfortable telling Dennis the same thing.

It's a truly worthless presumption.

Another brain dead thread.......ugh

But I would miss Kinect if they take it out.

Not at all, my friend. I truly think both the PS4 and Xbox One are seriously disappointing. The inclusion of baked-in Twitch is excellent and I think that's a really necessary feature at this point.

However, the only thing that makes either of these consoles truly necessary are exclusives that you can't get anywhere else, and they have to be incredibly desirable exclusives.

Neither of the consoles do anything interesting or exciting that we weren't expecting, and more triangles can only add so much to games before the world needs another gaming revolution. Add to that a product manager like the one the Xbox One was burdened with, and you end up with a tepid console.

Kudos for your evaluation of the value of the Xbox One, though. I agree that it needs a serious price drop, and that price should put it below that of the PS4. Nothing is dramatic, nothing is outstanding, nothing is exciting. It's all tepid and predictable.

I was hoping for so much more, and to see a man like this at the helm makes me understand what went wrong.

I would say you are overreacting quite a bit

Perhaps our expectations are different. If I were in a meeting, and someone said that quote to me as a means to explain the appeal of the Xbox One, I'd just sit there and ask "Why?" until I got a compelling answer.

If I didn't get a compelling answer, it's time to head back to the drawing board.

....lol

I don't mind Kinect, just don't bundle it.

@musicalmac:

First thing that came to my mind after reading that melodrama in your OP.

@musicalmac: but that is exactly what it is like with Kinect. Getting the hang of it playing with it seeing the convenience in its offers. I wouldn't want to go back to not having my Kinect.

It's pretty cool to be in the kitchen at my bar counter area and say "xbox watch ESPN" or "xbox volume up" I don't have to carry around my remote or controller every where. It really is something you have to experience. I don't sit there and talk to my X1 for every little thing, but if I want to or need to in a hurry I can and I like that.

I think that's a very astute observation. The reality is that MS missed an entire decade under Ballmer, and Apple took every ounce of it for themselves. Microsoft is just proving once again that they're comfortable playing catch-up while appearing to be the wise old tech sage.

"We'll wait it out and see how important VR becomes." Really? If it ends up flopping like terrible 3D televisions, I will gladly eat crow all day and all night long. But I've never seen people react to 3D television like they do to Oculus Rift. Either way, I don't think Sony nor Microsoft have enough power in their current model consoles to really take advantage of VR tech in a blockbuster sort of way.

Someone needs to light a fire over there in Redmond.

The X1 without kinect would feel like eggs without the bacon......peanut butter without the jelly......he is saying it would be missed and I would agree.

It is a little dramatic, I can't deny it. But I truly mean it.

It it were more flawless in it's operation, I could totally agree with you. But sadly it's not, so I hesitate to get on board with you completely here.

But that means you want a product that consumers may miss, not one that consumers will crave. A product manager that sets the precedent, "It's okay to shoot for 'okay.'"

Get him out of there so we can get something more exciting than that.

WTF is wrong with MS PR team first the whole "eventually it will do 1080p" and now this crack smoked quote of kinect, when all people are using it for is pausing netflix.... Someone needs to shut the MS PR team up stat.

I like Xbox One My Kinect Works Fine I like it as a addition people need to stop this Fan boy Crap Cool You like the PS4 but you don't see me bashing it go out and play it , Play both for that matter before you people open your mouths .

Whats the problem? This man obviously believes in Kinect as a more integral part of the Xbox platform, that without Kinect the Xbox One would not be the system that it is.

I don't think he's incorrect.

This is... a hell of a stretch :/

I can't substantiate your claim of how people are using it, but I can make your point worse by saying it's not their PR team, this is the vision of the product manager. The product manager.

Have you read through the thread? You really should read through a thread before opening your mouth, because it's likely you may contradict our own rhetoric.

They really do feel like the Sony of last gen. It's that "you will buy this and like it, anything else is sub-par and not worth our time" mentality.

After that train-wreck of an announcement you'd have thought they'd have learnt by now.

This is CLASSIC Microsoft. I wouldn't be surprised if they started working on their own headset as soon as they heard about Sony/Valve/Rift.. They can't think or innovate for themselves and when they see someone else do something innovative, they copy cat and try to cash in.

Whoever it is, whether it's the PR guys or Product they are honestly setting themselves up for disaster. And earlier in the week this was said:

"More Xbox One games will run in 1080p...eventually, Microsoft Xbox director of development Boyd Multerer has said in a new interview. Speaking with TotalXbox, Multerer said he has no doubt that developers will be able to reach that resolution as they discover and improve upon development techniques."

All this is as bad as Kutaragi in PS3 days.

This is such a fail statement from MS, I know for a fact they have been running around various companies trying to secure VR tech. How can they something will fail when they themselves at least considered it.

What if the bacon or jelly wasn't as advertised and so tasted bad or just added no taste and more people wanted it removed from the kitchen. That's kinda what the kinect is right now and they'd do well if they offered a kinectless sku. People who want it will still have it, but people who think it's pointless can happily avoid it and not have to store it in a cupboard.

Also, great thread TC. Let's keep this nice and unlocked for some intense discussion on everyone's fav peripheral.

Troll news. Lol pie.

This^ It would be nice if it was optional. I kind of like the voice commands, but I really don't use it at all.

Kinect needs VR asap! Kinect cannot be used properly with first person shooters due to not being able to see the tv when turning your body 360 degrees..

Kinect + 3D VR = Complete immersion + body tracking while being able turn 360 degrees. Kinect + VR is going to be the closest thing yet to a holodeck, and it may just be the holy grail of gaming...

He's trying to control people's mind to think that they need kinect, lol... Kinect and eyetoy got old pretty fast for me and I dont miss it one bit

When I read the quote (in the OP), all I could hear was Ballmer's voice. It is indeed classic MS. It's the attitude that lost MS a decade of progress.

1.1 Teras of flop.

Shwenga watch your mouth! We don't need that language anymore!!!

"once you take out, lots of people will go, 'Gosh, I really liked that" no one says that because this piece garbage can't even detect your voice properly, forget about your body tracking... At this rate it'll take MS five to six Kinect version to properly detect your body movements in simplistic ass games like Wii Fit: Microsoft Edition.

@musicalmac: Couldn't disagree more. No matter one's feelings on Kinect, the console is selling, and there are those that love, like, accept Kinect. I like it. Enjoy the Skype, sign in and voice commands. Gaming with family is fun also. You are an intelligent gamer, I'm surprised you'd post your opinion so matter of factly.

Wait, is this dude seriously a mod? lol

This. So many mods on this site are biased fanboys.

It's not about sales, it has nothing to do with sales. My problem stems from the lukewarm presumptions of a Ballmer-era product manager. As I said before, if I were in a meeting and my subordinate gave me a line like the quote in the OP, I'd fill it full of holes until he was prepared to go back to the drawing board to re-evaluate his strategy.

I'd also be meeting with his staff individually (without him present) to get direct feedback from them on their own ideas that were tabled and why they weren't implemented (if I liked one of these ideas). I'd also make it clear to my product manager that the reason I'm holding these meetings is because I want to ensure that our product will do exactly what we say it will do, and that it'll do those things better than any other competing product. I would say that I was holding these meetings to be thorough and that would not be a lie.

The initial idea of Kinect was one that I latched onto immediately, because it wasn't a half-hearted solution like PS Move (which is an entirely boring piece of equipment that got every ounce of attention it deserved last gen, which was virtually none). It was so genuinely different that I loved the concept, but the tech just wasn't quite there yet.

Fast forward to Kinect that ships with the Xbox One, and I would argue it's still not quite there. The voice commands aren't entirely natural, they're unintentionally non-conversational, and they have to be learned. The idea that voice commands need to be learned at this point in our history is a step backwards. I think relying on Kinect for voice commands would have been a logical option is MS had already developed and shipped Cortana (their answer to Apple's Siri and Google's voice solution). Sadly, this isn't the case (due to Microsoft's lost decade).

My thread is not an attack on the Xbox One or the PS4. My personal feelings are my own, and if you don't agree with them than they do not have any bearing on your personal perceptions should you disagree. I don't like the consoles because neither of them wow'd me and neither of them did anything extraordinary. This thread is an indictment of one man's borderline apathetic approach to consumer electronics that has resulted in what I perceive to be an ultimately disappointing product. That bothers me.

If you both disagree with me, it's better to attack the point than it is to attack the person.

Coulda fooled me, pretty piss poor choice of a thread title then pal. Most mods at least attempt to tactfully hide their fanboyism.

It's actually a play on another thread from the past that I found to be very compelling. The user made the point that there is no way the Xbox One can be this bad, and that there must be something we don't know. I have felt the same way for a long time, but with a product manager like this one, it's no wonder it disappointed so many gamers.

Would you disagree than the Xbox One was a major disappointment to a lot of gamers? The fact that it trails the PS4 in sales is one big indicator. If you have compelling evidence that's contrary to my statements, I'd truly love to see them. I love surprises and I'm so rarely surprised.

@musicalmac:

hey fair enough. I wonder why some have trouble with the voice commands. I don't need to learn them, they are written in green on any tile, just read them. My X1 has been amazingly responsive and intuitive. As far as the 'powah' thing, Nintendo showed power doesn't insure maximum profit. So they gambled and lost. But I don't believe its the power that has PS4 selling more. Its the brand recognition and price. Kaz said they would let MS make the first move and react accordingly. MS had DRM and other idiotic things and a 500 dollar price point. Sony reacted well, and smartly.

But the console isn't for everyone, none of them are. I enjoy it, am still getting a PS4.

You was not wow'd by either console...Ok, sorry to hear that. Next!

Basically they are sticking to their guns too much and not understanding that the market isn't being responsive to Kinect. That's going to continue to haunt them.