Microsoft’s locked down their Kinect pricing, availability and bundling, and it’s pretty much what everyone knew. It’s $150 on November 4 for the standalone, and $300 bundled with a 4GB version of the new, smaller Xbox.
As we found out back at E3, there’s an “arcade” version of the new Xbox 360. That will be $200 on August 3, come with 4GB of flash storage and built-in Wi-Fi. The difference between this and the big brother standard version is that the hard drive slot is empty (but it is there, for later expansion), and comes in a matte finish.
Both the $150 standalone Kinect and the $300 bundle will come with Kinect Adventures, basically Microsoft’s version of Wii Sports (but not really sports, more like outdoor activities).
Microsoft has also said that their first-party Kinect games will be $50, $10 less than the standard $60 games now. When asked about the small discount, Microsoft said that they wanted to appeal to the casual gamer more with the lower price.
I also asked about the Wal-mart retail bundles where they package a game, a $30 gift card and the Kinect for $200. Microsoft has no direct control over these, but it seems likely that Wal-mart will either lower the price or add in another game, seeing as you’re actually paying $20 more than the standard retail price for this bundle.
https://gizmodo.com/wal-mart-offering-199-kinect-bundle-selling-kinect-ga-5585893
Oh, and they’ve also locked down the price of Dance Central, our favorite Kinect game so far, to $50.
https://gizmodo.com/xbox-360-kinect-puts-play-back-in-gameplay-5565657
