Microsoft, in a flurry of offering more options to its users, has given up on a future powered by the Kinect. With the writing on the wall in the form of serious sales imbalances, the company is planning on offering a $399 Xbox One with no Kinect. The company will now compete on even ground with Sony, but it may already be too late. Here’s a look at the reasons the Xbox One turnaround makes Microsoft look weak.

Microsoft Cannot Follow Through On An Idea

The Xbox One was supposed to be the hardware center of the new Microsoft. The Kinect was supposed to be the way that customers would interface with their living rooms, and even their entire homes. Now the company offers a fragmented system that can’t even be utilized by game developers.

The Microsoft One strategy has been badly hampered by the loss of the Xbox One as a market leader, and Microsoft’s decision to kill the Kinect speaks volumes. The peripheral will never gain a following among developers now, and it may be just the first casualty of a coming massacre.

Microsoft Ecosystem Evaporates

It’s possible that the removal of the Kinect from the Xbox One spells the end of the Microsoft hardware pivot. The company was never really that successful in the area, and it was always a drag on financials, and it may be time to admit that the firm is not a hardware company.

With the removal of the company’s only really unique hardware promise, it seems as though there’s little left for Microsoft in the hardware world. With the company’s tablets still struggling, and the smart phone division a complete mystery, hardware is likely to become less and less of a focus going forward.

Xbox One Loses Europe

Estimates for the month of March suggested that though the Xbox One looked reasonably solid in North America, it was being trounced in Europe. According to those figures, the PS4 was outselling the Xbox One by 7 to 1. That should change after the price cut comes into effect, but Microsoft troubles in the area are not over.

Gaming is now a social enterprise with online multiplayer games being the most popular out there. That means that people are likely to buy a system that their friends already have. If very few Europeans own the Xbox One, very few are likely to buy into it now that the PS4 has a steady install base. Microsoft may have been shut off from the European market for the rest of this generation.

Microsoft Is Grasping For Second Place

The removal of the Kinect and the opening up of the entertainment features on the Xbox One mean just one thing, the console is now the very same as the PS4. It has the same price and the same features, though it’s arguable that graphics on the Sony machine are better, and that shows little ambition from Microsoft.

Console exclusives appear to be close to a dead art, so there is little differentiation left between the machines. With a solid lead in place it seems that Sony will stay ahead if the status quo remains. Microsoft seems happy, at the moment, with keeping itself in second place. That makes the company look weaker than anything else, and it doesn’t bode well for the future of the Xbox One.