I agree completely. The Kinect is a fascinating device, but it’s too difficult to program for, and I find it unlikely they’ll hard-line a full implementation. 

If Microsoft does force Kinect 2: Electric Bugaloo on everyone, then they need to make sure that thing is as smooth and beautiful as blown glass (will probably be just as fragile too, but I digress) for me to even consider buying it at that point.  Aside from the voice features when I’m too lazy to pick up the controller, Kinect seems to be more of a hindrance with which to navigate and I usually have to put a lead on my actions with the games due to the lag.  I know it was more or less a last ditch effort on their part to steal some Wii sales and hopefully the next iteration won’t be a cumbersome and rushed PITA.

In regards to the possibility of being unable to play used games, I would be -halfway- ok with that if 720 games were available for download at the time of release, and not full-price either.  I’m thinking at least $40 as there are no packaging costs or third party retail fees to go into the equation.  Seems fair enough to me if owners have no choice other than to buy new, but I doubt there would be any price reduction at all.  That’ll require a behemoth of a hard drive for sure though to accomodate a vast library of games if their file sizes rival that of the average blu-ray file (cloud saves will help, although save files tend to be neglibible in comparison to installed games).  I wonder if MS would purposefully nerf hard drive sizes to start with to artificially generate more HD sales.  We’ll just have to see.

Keep in mind they don’t have to require control method replacement with Kinect. They can require some very basic features, much the same way as all 360 disc games are “required” to have Live functionality, but any without online play just have leaderboards. As long as every game has SOMETHING, no matter how small, that is augmented by Kinect, Microsoft wins and developers don’t have to do much to appease them.

I believe it will always be an option, because requiring it would just piss people off and drive them over to Sony.

In regards to the used game scenario, I think they would do something like that — I mean, it’s already being done now with “VIP” codes and the like, but they won’t be lowering their prices to $50. The fact of the matter is, they’d be up to their eyeballs in lawsuits if games weren’t fully playable without paying them a fee.