Microsoft's Head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, has announced that a $399 version of Xbox One will soon be available. Starting June 9th, customers will be able to purchase a Kinectless version of the Xbox One.
Back in February, Microsoft announced that they wouldn't be offering Xbox One without Kinect, stating that "Kincect remains an important part of our vision". We will continue to innovate on Kinect, I think it's an important differentiator for us." But with recent news of the PS4 dominating the Xbox One in sales, it's no surprise that Microsoft has moved to drop the device in order to competitively price the Xbox.
Kinect will now be sold seperately, and without any compelling software to make the device a necessity, the decision seems like a no-brainer. Although, now that it's not guarunteed that every Xbox One user will have Kinect, one has to wonder if developers will have any incentive to incorporate its use in games at all.