Microsoft officially announced the price for Kinect, and it’s not going to take anyone by surprise. Yep, it’s $150. The bigger announcement is a huge upgrade for the Xbox 360 Arcade.
Over on Major Nelson’s blog, prices were finally revealed for Kinect. The unit itself will come bundled with ‘Kinect Adventures’ and will cost $150. That’s been the rumored price since before E3, but it still raises the ire of a few folks. $150 for a peripheral with a pack-in game isn’t a huge amount of cash if it ends up being fun. But if it loses developer support, it’s going to be a $150 piece of plastic just sitting in your living room.
What’s cooler is the new Arcade version of the 360. It uses the same design as the new “360 S” units, except it has a matte black finish rather than the shiny dust-loving finish of the bigger version. It’s still got the built in wireless and all the other goodies that the new system packs, and it retains the old arcade unit’s $199 price. It’s also got an expanded hard drive of 4GB, which is a big step over the 512MB in the current models. You’ll be able to snag one for yourself, or a loved one, or your favorite Bonus View writer on August 3rd.
Microsoft also announced a new bundle for the holidays. For $299, you’ll get the new Arcade unit paired with Kinect, which saves you about $50 in the long run. There’s no combo announced for the “360 S” though, which is a shame.
My take on all of this: $150 isn’t a lot to pay to add a new feature set to your system. That is, if it works. If developers support it and ‘Dance Central‘ ends up being as great as it looks, then Microsoft’s got a nice win under its belt and gamers will have something new to play with. After all, $150 is a lot cheaper than buying yet another new system.
Worst case scenario: You’re a hardcore gamer that has absolutely no interest in Kinect. In that case, don’t buy it. Best case scenario: You love it. Sounds like a win-win situation.
So, what do you think? Is Kinect priced right, or is the $150 just too high a price of entry?
Eric Hulen
I for one I’m not buying one for $150. I’ve yet to see a console add-on that succeed that was in that price range. It’s going to bomb like the Sega CD or 32x. If they made it under $100 I could see it selling okay but not at $150. You could almost just buy a Wii for that much and get a far better game selection.
The only way I see this thing has a chance is that they some how tap into the Wii soccer mom audience and they start buying it like hot cakes for the fitness games like they did for the Wii fit. But that’s a very small chance since most have already gotten bored of those Wii fitness games and they don’t care that the xbox is HD.
Jane Morgan
25 million US households have an income of over $75,000 per year. Kinect will most likely sell less than 1 million units this holiday. The price isn’t the bottleneck.
The games look generic. I hope the tech continues to evolve after it dies on 360. Maybe 3rd generation Kinect, on the xbox 1080 in 2012, will be flawless HD casual gaming bliss.
Zaserov
I’m guessing that at $150 this is going to be a flash-in-the-pan gimmick.
The new arcade package will be the same price as a Wii and Wii Fit, so as Eric said that market’s been tapped already. And even for those purely in the market for an Xbox, the choice is the arcade with kinect or the elite, likely with a major game or two. I know which I would choose.
As a stand-alone, it seems even less likely to go anywhere. I suppose $150 isn’t a huge outlay considered on its own, but compared to $200-$300 for the main system, that’s a very large part of the initial price. $150 is also a big chunk toward another console. Finally, even if people have the money and all 3 consoles already, the launch offerings for this are going to be slim, as is true for all launches; so I’d imagine many will wait for better/more titles, but then developers will have to choose between an established audience for the core system or hope to be the breakout for an expensive new peripheral.
It seems to me that price matching the Wii Fit bundle – $100 and include a major game (Kinect Adventures looks to be a Wii Sports type short intro) – would be the best bet. But who knows, maybe curiosity and advertising will do the trick.
coologuy1957
bah…
show me some games that look fun and drop the price and we’ll talk…
so far I’ve seen lackluster interactive screensavers and buggy controls over netflix and zune music/movie player. *yawn*