The buzz about Kinect since E3 has not been about the potential of this new technology nor the games, but the price and what it can’t do. Microsoft has confirmed today on Major Nelson’s blog that Kinect will retail for $149.99 that will include Kinect Adventures with it to confirm what many of the retailers, and even the Microsoft Store, have been saying since E3. They also formally announced the new Arcade that will retail for $199.99 and what appears to be the only Kinect console bundle at $299.99.

The smartest thing about the Kinect pricing is that you will at least get a game with the camera. Kinect Adventures is a bit of a surprise choice since even Sony went with their token sports minigame collection as the pack-in for their Move controller bundle, so most expected Kinect Sports to be the pack-in game. Kinect Adventures is kind of an on-rails game where you’re either on a raft that is racing down a river or on an obstacle course that features lots of coins and hidden routes that you’ll try to collect and discover to get the highest possible score. The game supports two players at a time and it doesn’t hesitate to take pictures of you to show you the weird poses that you’ll end up in while playing the game. Kinect will come with two power cords so that it can be powered either by the new Xbox 360′s special Kinect port or through the normal power socket for everybody that has the old style Xbox 360.

If you want to get some more Kinect games with your purchase, Microsoft also confirmed that their initial batch of games (Kinect Sports, Kinectimals, and Kinect Joy Ride) will retail for $49.99, which is at least better than the standard $59.99 that most Xbox 360 games cost at launch. You may remember that Kinect Joy Ride was originally announced as a free-to-play Xbox Live Arcade game at last year’s E3, so the quick change into a $50 retail game is a bit of a disappointment for fans of free games. They don’t specify if third-party games will also be $49.99, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see the rest of the launch titles for Kinect to retail for the same price even though we’d like to see a wider range of pricing options that we enjoy on the Wii. Sony announced at E3 that their Move retail games will be priced at $39.99, which includes

Kinect has received some criticism lately with some of the limits of the technology as it currently stands that may mean that you will have to stand for all of the games and only two people can actively play a game at a time. Kotaku reports that sitting isn’t really possible at the moment, but we’ve heard otherwise from other Microsoft employees that seems to say that a lot of these features are still being nailed down. The other issue is that Kinect only supports two players that contradicts the four-person families we’ve seen playing Kinect games before E3, which is at least supported by the fact that all of the multiplayer games at E3 only allowed two players at a time. We’ve heard that this is a technical limit of the Kinect hardware itself, so this one may not be able to change so easily. Dance Central was the only game that seemed to let more than two people play at a time, though only the player in front is being scored and judged while the others in the back are just backup dancers that can play along for fun.

Beyond Kinect, Microsoft also announced the replacement for the Xbox 360 Arcade as the cheaper option to the new Xbox 360 that was released a month ago. This cheaper Xbox 360 features the same design as the new Xbox 360, built-in Wi-Fi N, 4 GB of internal flash memory, and a black matte finish that will retail for $199.99 when this launches on August 3. Of course, there will also be a hardware bundle that will bundle the new 4 GB Xbox 360 with Kinect and Kinect Adventures for $299.99 when Kinect launches on November 4. Also, if you pre-order Kinect or the Kinect Xbox 360 bundle, you will receive a code to download three new levels for Kinect Adventures.

The main issues with the new Arcade system is that there are only limited upgrade options for the storage space right now. Microsoft has not announced any new internal hard drives to fit the new proprietary design that the new Xbox 360 requires. Until then, you can either use external USB hard drives or thumb drives, which can only offer up to 16 GB per device. Don’t expect to be downloading much if you get the bundle and no new storage options are announced by Microsoft before Kinect launches.

That gives us two main avenues that you’ll have to get Natal on November 4. You can get the standalone Kinect camera for $149.99 with Kinect Adventures for those that already have an Xbox 360 and $299.99 for the 4 GB Xbox 360 that is bundled with Kinect and Kinect Adventures.

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About This Author: Chris Selogy

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