Added on July 21, 2010    Do not want? , Kinect , Kinect Price , Microsoft , Xbox 360

Kinect Priced at $150 With “Free” Game, Slim Bundle on the Way, and the Return of the $50 Game!

So after weeks of speculation of the true price of the Xbox Kinect device, with various sources all saying $150, including Microsoft’s own online store, the true price has finally been revealed! At $150.  No shit.

To be fair, the Kinect will be bundled with Kinect Adventures, a “free” videogame, which is a pretty good deal. I say free in quotes because I don’t know anyone who particularly wants the game, but like Wii Sports will be the quickest way of showing people what the device can really do, so it’s a solid title for the bundle.

I’m still not entirely sold, but it seems pretty reasonable right now.

Also in Microsoft news is the Xbox 360 Slim bundle with Kinect will also be sold at the expected price of $299. However the main issue with this bundle is that the version of the Xbox 360 slim bundled only has an incredibly limited 4 gig Hard Drive size. That’s pathetic.

Despite the fact that Microsoft is pushing the sale of zip drives in lure of having a real hard drive, the 4 gigs included gigs is nothing. You can do very little with 4 gigs, outside of having basic saves, which defeats the purpose of most other features including the ones you can do with just the Xbox. This is really disappointing news.

I wouldn’t be as upset if Microsoft would just start selling slim unit hard drives at stores, so this could be a more palatable buy, but they’re not, and they’re not announcing when they will. I mean, the release of hard drives is inevitable, but as of right now…those of you looking to upgrade to the slim with the Kinect bundled are SoL until Microsoft gets its head out of its ass.

I personally think that this is all just a ploy to get new costumers to either buy Kinect separately increasing the price dramatically, or buy one of Microsoft’s 16 gig zip drive memory sticks, also raising the price, and that sucks.

Finally, the biggest news from Microsoft is that they’re pushing to make all Kinect games have the price point of $50. Right now, they’ve priced all first party games at $50, and have gotten the biggest game of the launch lineup “Dance Central” from Harmonix, to also ship at that price.

I LOVE this idea so much! I miss the days of fifty dollar games, and to hear they might be returning, even if only on a small scale, is awesome news. It makes sense to me to sell these games at a lowered price since the Kinect takes up like 15% of the Xbox’s processing power, hence technologically weaker games.

We’ll see if the price actually sticks when it hits the stores this November.

So what do you guys think? Are you on board with the Kinect’s price point? Leave you thoughts in the comments below, or in the WPR forums.

Notes
I’m waiting for a Sony fanboy to create a photo shop image of an Xbox user saying “Xbox stop red ringing” to the Kinect

I wonder if Microsoft will ever allow third parties to create hard drives for the Xbox. Hint probably not

If you’re a Wii gamer I guess the days of fifty dollar games never left.