Microsoft defends Kinect pricing
Analysts were generally unimpressed with the $150 price tag put on the Kinect hardware -- the consensus has been that Microsoft set the price too high and sales will suffer as a result. But Microsoft group marketing manager Brett Siddons disagrees. Speaking at an Amazon event in the UK, he said that once you "do the maths," Kinect is "very competitively priced."
His argument is that $150 gets you support for two players (six non-active players) and the full Kinect Adventures game, with no other accessories needed. This is compared to PlayStation Move, which comprises the main controller and a demo disc for $50. The "Navigation Controller" is $30 more, and if you want to expand the system to two players, you'll be paying even more. When you look at it that way, according to Siddons, Kinect is priced about the same given the functionality.
Still, even if that $150 buys an experience similar to what's on other consoles, there remains the question of whether or not gamers will want to write that larger check in the first place.
His argument is that $150 gets you support for two players (six non-active players) and the full Kinect Adventures game, with no other accessories needed. This is compared to PlayStation Move, which comprises the main controller and a demo disc for $50. The "Navigation Controller" is $30 more, and if you want to expand the system to two players, you'll be paying even more. When you look at it that way, according to Siddons, Kinect is priced about the same given the functionality.
Still, even if that $150 buys an experience similar to what's on other consoles, there remains the question of whether or not gamers will want to write that larger check in the first place.
