With the current generation hardware sales race well underway, Sony has jumped out to an early lead with their PlayStation 4 ahead of the Xbox One in worldwide sales. The International Data Corporation has leaked some of their predictions for the future, and it includes Microsoft unbundling the Kinect from the Xbox One to achieve price parity with the PS4.
Xbox One should recover and emerge with largest installed base in North America
According to the findings revealed on Games Industry, IDC predicts that Sony will sell over 50 million PlayStation 4 consoles by 2016. That’s a lot of consoles, no doubt, but they also believe that Microsoft will make up lost ground in North America, fueled by removing the Kinect as a mandatory tie-in for the console.
An excerpt from the report reads: “The presumed unbundling of Kinect and Xbox One, which should facilitate rough price parity between it and the PS4, should lead to a spike in Xbox One sales; assuming the console and sensor are unbundled in 2015, IDC expects Xbox One to recover and emerge with largest installed base of any console in North America by the end of 2016.” The full report and predictions from IDC will be released later this week.
Of course, these are just predictions. Microsoft has gone on the record to say that they have no intentions of removing the Kinect from the Xbox One, and the sensor plays a large role in the console and user interface. This hypothetical situation does seem to be the most popular, however. IDC isn’t the only set of analysts that are predicting a drastic move by Microsoft to sell consoles. Earlier this year, Michael Pachter said he thinks it’s a 2015 event, where Microsoft will finally make Kinect optional for the Xbox One.
