Microsoft/Kinect- Extreme Tech

Microsoft offers $150 Kinect, but does anyone actually want one?

• By Grant Brunner on August 27, 2014 at 3:31 pm
• Comment

Share This article

Starting on October 7th, the unbundled version of the Xbox One’s Kinect sensor will go on sale for a whopping $150. That’s right, one hundred and fifty American dollars for a peripheral that Microsoft has gone out of its way to distance itself from. With a price that high, who would even consider buying this standalone Kinect?

In a post on the official Xbox Wire site, Microsoft details the new SKU. It’s the exact same device that ships along with the $500 version of the Xbox One, and it’ll ship with a code that can be redeemed online for a digital copy of Dance Central Spotlight. The included game is certainly better than nothing, but who is this catering to, exactly?

The slimmer original.

The original Kinect for the Xbox 360 launched at the same $150 asking price, but that was a much-hyped mid-cycle peripheral for a dominant platform. The situation has changed, and Microsoft definitely shouldn’t be trying to sell this to consumers at $150. Microsoft already devalued the Kinect experience by offering a $400 Kinect-free SKU in the first place, and now it wants to charge a premium for the standalone version of the device. You can’t have your cake and eat it too, Microsoft.

Look at Sony’s PS4 camera: it offers similar functionality, and its suggested retail price is $60. I just looked on Amazon, and I can buy the PS4 Camera from Amazon with Prime shipping for under $45. Can Microsoft claim that the Kinect offers three times the utility? A quick look at the Xbox One’s Kinect on eBay shows that used models can be easily be had for between $50 and $90. If some theoretical person regrets buying a Kinect-less Xbox One, the used market beats the pants off of Microsoft’s supply in terms of both price and availability — no need to wait around for October.

As for tinkerers, Microsoft is already offering a separate PC-compatible version of the hardware. This October release is just for swiping and snapping menus on your game console — not helping engineers make the world a better place. All of the incredible research and development being done with the Kinect will continue unabated regardless of the existence of this Xbox One-only standalone Kinect. Frankly, there’s no reason why anyone should buy this peripheral — it’s yet another example of how out-of-touch the Xbox team is with reality.

Tagged In

• microsoft
• sony
• game consoles
• ps4
• xbox one
• eighth generation
• kinect
• xbox 360
• kinect for windows

Share This Article