If you're interested in something, you would go and try to find out as much information on it. Your average mainstream consumer will not be paying $399-$499 for a gaming console. Somebody that doesn't game and just want entertainment apps/tv is not going to pay $499 for an xbox one. If the mainstream consumer is such a big factor in deciding the sucess of the Xbox One at launch, Microsoft wouldn't have backpeddled on the drm policies, cause the hardcore doing the raging would not matter.
Totally disagree. There are plenty of mainstream consumers who will be buying both of these units for the holidays. It's not as if they're $800. Removing DRM was to placate everyone, most especially people who buy used games for their kids or anyone who trades in games in general or sells them secondhand. It wasn't just a move made to please the hardcore. Those "mainstream" buyers may not care
now, because they're months away from having to make an informed buying decision, but you can believe MS knew they would be hammered by the general public as well as the hardcore gamers by the time these consoles came to market in the fall with the DRM policy still in place on the XB1. Just because the general public doesn't really care at the moment (and why would they need to?) doesn't mean it wouldn't have been a factor when the average consumer starts paying attention to which unit they're going to buy for themselves or their kids for Christmas.
As far as Kinect goes, MS seems to want the Kinect as a guide for the infrastructure of the system itself -- turning it on, going through menus, etc. Less as a gaming function (perhaps -- we'll see). Now, I may not like it, and I'd rather see it dropped and have the system be $100 less like everyone else, but MS must feel the only way to get people to use it is to mandate it. More over, that extra $100 isn't -- IMO -- going to end up being that huge of a deal for MS. They have an edge with Xbox Live, they've got an online network that has a lot of players who are going to stick with it, they have exclusives that sell in the U.S., and they feel -- rightly or wrongly -- that they can afford the additional $100, even with Sony being out there at a lesser price point.
But if it doesn't work, they'll make adjustments. Like anything else, they can change course if they need to, if Sony truly ends up outselling them this holiday season. Either way, this winter will a battle, but it's not going to win either side the war so to speak, no matter how much fanboy hyperbole is stoked up on message boards.