Looks like the rumors were pretty much spot-on when it came
to Kinect pricing. Microsoft has announced that its new gesture-recognition
peripheral will retail for $150 when it hits stores this November. That price
will include a bundled version of the “Kinect Adventures” game.
Microsoft’s main focus with Kinect is to attract new users
to the Xbox 360, so it will also offer a larger bundle, which includes an Xbox
360 (with 4GB of storage), a Kinect and “Kinect Adventures” for $299.
Games for the Kinect system will retail at $50 each – $10
less than traditional Xbox 360 games.
If you’ve got two or three people in your family who will be
regularly (and simultaneously) playing motion sensor games, that makes Kinect
cheaper than PlayStation Move (which, by the time you pick up all the
components, runs $130 for the first system and $80 for each additional
controller). But the pricing is still worrisome to industry observers, who were
hoping for something closer to $100 total.
For those who aren’t interested in Kinect, Microsoft also
announced the replacement for the Xbox 360 Arcade SKU. The standalone console,
which comes with 4 GB of storage as well, will go on sale Aug. 3 for $199.