Microsoft’s Kinect motion peripheral for Xbox 360 (formerly called Project Natal) will cost $150 at retail on its own, and $300 bundled with a 4 GB Xbox 360 slim console. Both will launch November 4 with the Kinect Adventures suite of casual motion games included.
This price is unsurprising since numerous retailers and e-tailers, including Microsoft’s own online store, have listed Kinect for $149 at one time or another. The bundle is no surprise either, and in fact, it’s very good news. The 4 GB Xbox 360 Slim fills in for the hard drive-less Xbox 360 Arcade model, which was never an attractive proposition for gamers.
Kinect and the Xbox 360 Slim were formally announced at the E3 video game conference in Los Angeles last month.
Since Kinect Adventures comes bundled with all Kinect devices just like Wii Sports comes with the Nintendo Wii, families and individuals will be able to pick up and play without investing in new games. Once those consumers start itching for more, though, most of the games for Kinect will cost $50 — $10 less than “core gamer” titles like Halo Reach or Call of Duty: Black Ops. That includes third-party titles like MTV Games’s Dance Central, which we previewed at E3.
EEDAR analyst Jesse Divnich notes that $150 is fair since game-specific peripherals with much more limited uses are already selling like hotcakes at the same price. “Game specific peripherals have a limited shelf-life in terms of appeal; there are only so many sessions of Guitar Hero one can enjoy before game fatigue sets in,” he says. “With the Kinect, however, there is the possibility of a wide array of games across a broad range of genres, potentially giving the Kinect a much longer shelf-life than a typical peripheral.”
source: www.mashable.com
