More speech recognition because the motion recognition doesnt work...good job....naht

Couldn't they have just done this before and used the headset mic instead of using Kinect. :S

They could've just let us use a headset but they need to try to justify this poduct. I do think Mass Effect 3 voice recognition was impressive and what Ubisoft showed for Splinter Cell: Blacklist at E3 was very cool but it does annoy me that if I want to use this stuff I have to pay $100+ for a device that, frankly, I couldn't care less about. It's a ridiculous move by MS but considering the terrible direction they've gone in since 2008 it doesn't shock me at all. If it wasn't for Halo I wouldn't even consider giving the Xbox brand a second look when this gen comes to an end. It's a shame how the 360's closing years are going considering the first 2006-2008 was friggin' phenomenal.

Yeah, I was just trying to think of a reason to choose a 360 over a PS3, I don't think there is many any more due to 90% of titles going multi format. Like you say, Halo, maybe Gears of War? not exactly that interested in those games anymore. They would have to do something amazing hardware wise to get me to buy a 360 come the next "next" gen of machines.

I still love the Halo games, if you're not a huge fan though then there's pretty much no reason to consider supporting the Xbox brand. Gears of War is great also but it's Epic's franchise and they take it multiplatform any time they want. For 'core' gaming, Sony is where it's at these days, even over Nintendo. Since 2009 the PS3 has had the best and most varied library of games because of all the exclusive first party franchises. It's not even close really. MS has found a new market for itself with Kinect and for those who like it, more power to them. Me? I really don't see much use for it, I'd rather play games with the good old game pad. It's served gamers well since the NES days and there's no reason to get rid of it.

The thing that really annoys me about the 360 is how rubbish their "deals" are compared with the PSN. They really do need to start discounting downloadable games, the good ones.

I know people who have been XBL 'Gold' members since the first day of its service and they haven't gotten anything out of it other than to be able to play games online with friends. Something that is free on every other service, like it should be. Recently MS finally gave a 'free' XBLA game away and what was it? A Kinect game, I believe it was Haunt. That's pathetic. Meanwhile just last month I got Little Big Planet 2 and VF 5 Final Showdown for free off of PSN and if I didn't already own it, I could've added inFamous 2 to my collection as well. There's definitely no comparison in how the two companies treat its consumers. Hell even Nintendo of America, which is pretty terrible itself, is better than MS with this stuff. And being a Vita owner on top of also have a PS3 with all the cross platform stuff Sony is doing, they're just so far ahead of MS right now, I just wish that the North American market would wake up and realize it. As long as people in the US and Canada keep their heads in the sand like they always do, MS can continue to get away with its garbage. We never reward companies over here for doing right by consumers and it's starting to annoy me. If MS was actually offering something to the gamer other than Halo I'd be fine with the company having success but the problem is that they're not offering anything unless you own that terrible glorified eyetoy.

Aye I saw that Haunt thing, was thinking, urm where is our free game here in europe? Also, I have been a Gold member since day one as well, I just let my membership lapse these days. What i do now is not subscribe then pick up the offer of Gold for £1 for one month and make sure i turn off auto renewal, been doing that for ages now. In reality that offer is another kick in the teeth for regular Gold subscribers, as I am getting Gold cheaper than loyal people auto renew. Once that offer runs out they can shove their "gold" service. I also own a PS3 & vita, and am loving all the offers they have on the PSP titles each week, some of the PS3 stuff aint bad either. Microsoft deserve to fail after how they treat their loyal customers. I mean why don't they have a similar thing to Nintendo, you buy a full retail release game, input a code on XBOXLIVE and get some sort of reward similar to Nintendo Stars (only better) discount on downloadable games. The same could be done with the hardware, (I've replaced mine plenty of times in the past due to it breaking) ...but no! too greedy.

MS operates differently because it's an American company. Not that I think Sony and Nintendo don't display plenty of greed as well but being Japanese companies I think there is a little bit more of 'code of honor' than there is amongst companies based out of North America or Europe. Put it this way, if the next Xbox sells putridly you'd never see MS slash the price and then have execs admit they did a poor job with the system and cut their salary in half the way Iwata did after 3DS' disastrous start. I don't have love for any big corporation or the higher ups who basically dump on the regular employees but I do have a little bit more respect for the ones who are willing to admit 'hey, we f'ed up.' Nobody at MS ever does that. The amount of Xbox 360s that red ringed is a joke and what did MS do? First denied, then later blamed consumers. Sickening. The most disappointing part though is that overall the 360 actually is a solid product and if anybody at MS had a clue it could be even better. Once Peter Moore, Shane Kim and other gaming people left the company, the Xbox division went straight to hell with Phil Spencer leading the way, every time I read an interview from that guy I feel like I have to grab a barf bag when I'm done.