When I was veeeeery little, my daddy used to say "ONE DAY YOUR GAME CONSOLE AND COMPUTER WILL BE ONE!", and excluding PC-gaming, it's true! Personally, I'm very excited.
I love the features. It comes with the kinect needed for voice and all that stuff, and so I'm SURE there will be a future release with said kinect built right into the console. It's not ugly, it's an x-BOX. A *box*. I mean, really. The designs across current systems aren't THAT different in appearance. It's fine. I am VERY excited that I can have a real use for SmartGlass. I am going to love being able to Skype with people on my friend's list and simultaneously watch a movie or something. I like all the built-in media options. YES, we had these options before, but they were clunky and awkward. With the XONE, it seems to be fluid and easy to control and multitask. Like a phone. Which is great.
Voice commands are actually nice to have. I'm sure there is an option to disable them for those who dislike them. I'm excited to not have to plug in my webcam and mic all the time. And that price point on EB/GS? It's JUST a place-holder. Take it from an employee. We had the Wii U at $999 when it was first announced, and the Aus. site had the Wii U around $600. It's just a number put into the system so that they are able to take preorders.
I personally think this is great. How can I NOT be impressed? The technology across all the new systems lately is very, VERY impressive. I can't wait for that day when there is a system that has ALL of it!
The best part of all of this is all the new exclusives. I am *SO* happy about that. I bought my Wii U at launch and it's just sitting there like the waste of money it is. I should have waited until a game I wanted for it was released. I'm excited for the XONE and will definitely be purchasing it, but probably not at launch. I know good and well that there will be a nicely priced bundle waiting for me soon after it's released, and that is when I'll get it. And hey, I might even fall back in love with Call of Duty. ^_^
500 GB HD- $70
8 GB ram sticks- $70
Blu-ray disk drive- $100
Kinect- $120
just on parts(and Kinect 2.0 probably would cost more than Kinect) we come to a total of $360
to make a 70% profit off of the system we will add $252
add labor fees of maybe $150-200 and we get a grand total of $762-$812........... and that's not including the cost of the wireless, HDMI, USB ports, and the controller. This thing is gonna be expensive
Just want to point out that Microsoft will NOT pay the same prices for hardware as normal consumers would. They acquire partnerships/deal/contracts with various companies and pay a price based on sales history, future sales estimations, and company-history relations. As well as many other factors that affect what they are charged.