Microsoft On Kinect Pricing: “You Do The Maths”

Speaking to TechRadar at the Kinect stand at an Amazon event, Microsoft’s marketing manager Brett Simmons has defended Kinect’s pricing after it was announced last week.  You’ll remember that we said Kinect’s standalone price was to be £129.99 here in the UK when it launches later this year.

“The price thing itself depends on how you look at it,” said Siddons. “It’s £129.99 RRP but it comes with a game within that price – so Adventures will be packed in with the camera.  If you buy it with the console which normally costs £149.99, [the total becomes] £249.99 with the Kinect and the games  another £100 on top.”

There’s been pricing matrixes put out by all parties recently, with each claiming to show their own motion control device is the keenest priced.  “The camera tracks six people – with two active gamers – you don’t have to buy anything else,” he said, confirming once and for all that Kinect supports two gamers simultaneously.

“I’ll let you do the maths but when you say Nintendo Wii or PlayStation Move you buy this and this, even for a two player games. What do you need and what do actually have to spend for a two player game for this device versus that device. You actually find that [Kinect] is very competitively priced.”

For comparison, Sony’s Move costs £49.99 for the Eye, a Move controller and a demo disk.  TechRadar cite a comparable cost of £150 when you factor in another Move controller and two of the subcontrollers (which are £29.99 each) which, whilst not essentially for most games, is a price worth lots to marketing departments.

Source: TechRadar.