If they sold the system without kinect at this point, they would probably infuriate countless developers that have added kinect features based off their developer kits. If MS wanted to really sell the kinect as a new standard they should have done what Sony did with the PS3 when they were establishing blu ray as a new standard. Sell the system at a loss for the first 6 months or so until the costs to produce the system drops.. then they'll make money. As it is with their $100 extra per unit cost, they'll be losing sales. If they lost money initially it could benefit them in the long run with new xbox live memberships, word of mouth from fans and extra features the PS4 does not have all for the same price. Right now, Sony is going to get the jump on MS just like MS did on Sony in the last gen consoles.