Great to see MS jumping in with both feet on the price and exclusivity wars; this only means good things for the hardcore gamers.

But with no console bundling and a >$100 solo price point means no one is gonna buy the Kinect, except for the odd gimmicky dancing game.

History has not been kind to standalone peripherals.

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2014/08/12/i-want-to-win-this-generation-says-xbox-boss-phil-spencer.aspx

With regard to the standalone Kinect, Spencer says timing is a matter of inventory and working with retail partners. The device (which isn't included in any of the three bundles announced this morning) is still on track for a solo retail appearance. Those planning to purchase a standalone Kinect should expect to spend slightly more than $100, though.

"We need to get the prices ," Spencer said "I want consumers to make decisions when they're fully informed. The price difference will be more than between the console (bundles)."

The Kinect unbundling was one major part of Spencer's work to turnaround the Xbox brand after a rough 2013. The company is behind in worldwide sales, with our last known shipped number at 5 million as of March 31 (and a total of 1.1 million Xbox One and Xbox 360 units the next quarter) against Sony's newly announced 10 million PlayStation 4s sold.

"At some level, it is a competition, and I've said before I want to win," Spencer tells us. "At the same time, I want to build a great platform for gamers. If somebody else does that to, and they do really well? Hats off to them, but I can have success in our own space if we're selling a lot of consoles and people are buying games."