Microsoft justifies PC Kinect price

"However, somewhat surprisingly, the device will cost $250, which is $100 more than its console counterpart." No-no, that's not surprising at all. Think of it as Microsoft penalizing you for not buying their $300 system.

meh the kinect is ok but as the one fps shows its not really the best for "hardcore" gamers. i think mostly younger folks who like it. :-)

ROFL wow there's some butthurt Sony fans posting here LOL. Microsoft has done an awesome job creating something new with Kinect. Not like Sony who copied Nintendo Wii with the pink ball wavy around wii hd thingy. Oh and I think that Kinect setting sales records speaks very loudly to it's success. Much louder than some sarcastic Sony fan talking about E3 presenters ROFL. Butt hurt much? "Xbox 360 is the BEST console EVER made." --John Carmack

I remember when everyone thought the Kinect was going to be the greatest thing ever. Oh wait, that was just the people presenting Kinect at the XBOX stage @E3 lolz.

hope it works better then the 1 for 360.. what a waste of money for me

MS botched connect. They where to norrowly focused on getting 360 sales boosted, they failed to see the real potential this technology has. These things could have sold for a $1000 a peice if they made it straight into the commercial relm. And licsenced out software to support it on PC. They could have done it in a Commercial Versoin with super high range and speed and a Gamer version. They put the best out first and oops, its sold for cheap. You can't even buy MS Office Suite for less than $400 for business.

wait six months and it will cost the same as the console counterpart

Still no news on xbox games. Droping game support again MS, shame on you...

Really MS? I'm just gonna do like the rest of the community and mod a kinect built for the xbox to work for my pc and save a ton of money on top of that.

Overpriced web cam now hey? should be 'aimed' at everyone if they want it to sell at that price, ridiculous =/

WTFH!?!

I don't here any justification in there just BS. You can still develop with XNA for Xbox using the Kinect and you will be using the same software to develop for the PC. Just because it is not geared towards the home user and gaming they can jack up the price...I don't think so. That goes to show most companies policies to overprice "business" sales.

The increase in price is, I will admit pretty steep, but the reason is simple. Kinect for PC is design for business user with no interest in games which in terms mean that Microsoft cannot subsidize the price of the device with the objective of increasing games sales as it does with the XBOX 360 version. All console manufacturers, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo,.. sell hardware at a loss to increase games sales which is where money is made. In this case they sell the hardware at it's true value that's all. People should stop whine and moan on subjects they clearly do not understand or are to lazy to research properly.

I don't think PC users want garbage like kinect anyway

Microsoft makes great product, but they seriously need to work on their marketing.

i forecast someone using the drivers of the overpriced version and making them work with the xbox one Micro$hit is setting its self to fall

And why is it OK to charge "companies that dont have a gaming interest" more than anyone else? Oh right, the same reason MS Office was always completely extortionate as it was aimed at businesses - "because you can" and "because everyone uses it so you can write your own price". And because companies can claim tax back as an expense I guess :)

Wow, even for non Xbox owners this seems a pornographic price...

What Next Releasing Gears Of War 2 PC for 120$, HUH? MS you need to grow up and treat PC Gamers with more respect

I don't know why anyone wanting it wouldn't just buy the 360 version and hack it to work on the PC like they've been doing for ages now.

microsoft thinks pc users are stupid enough to pay more for this thing. this strategy looks like a page ripped straight from netflix's game book.

Post before mine says it all.

LMAO, M$ never stop do they. I bet at E3 they come up with the new xbox and try sell every kinect owner a second unit and tout 3D as the future. Even the comment saying the new dash makes the console a new console again says it all. They just keep repackaging stuff and selling it on as something new. I wouldnt mind, but so far Ive spent about an hour on my kinect launch day unit actually playing games, its almost pointless as a gaming add on.

Hell with that. Someone will simply write drivers for the console version that make it function the same (if they haven't already). Microsoft, does your greed have no end?

Are poeple surprised that it's expensive? It's M$ we're talking about. They always look at the max price they can sell something for, and then up it a little bit.

Evolution in PC gaming~

In other words MS has NO idea how to market this THING to the PC gaming crowd's, let alone have any idea what to actually DO with this thing now that they've tried to plug it down our collective Gullets on their console only to garner an item worth in the general Gaming circles approximately the same Value as a Bucket of Lukewarm Oyster Spunk. The software bundle just screams of " HERE someone DO something with this thing that we can market to people, PLEASE!"

Tom seems disappointed from not getting the answers for the questions he asked directly haha.

long story short, the price tag include kinect + development kit software. a developer product not a consumer product. similar to the playstation move developer kit.

it's so expensive !!! of course you can do a lot of things with this device on PC

i guess we will have to wait to find out the answers to the questions asked!

i think you have to look at it this way...this application can make your life so much better in a sci fi way!! some mods and programs being developed will be the next level of living. How much are you willing to pay for that ?? for example if kine-ct were connected to your house and opened doors on recognition with security because it knows its you and even greeted you personally like the house on eureka???

I am a working student... the $250 is already my effin monthly salary! No thanks M$.

For gaming - no. $250 for Kinect is way too expensive to be worth it for any games that Microsoft may consider releasing. I very much doubt that third-party publishers will support this much. For productivity use - perhaps. In business, $250 is a bargain (by comparison, the software I use in my office costs $800 a licence, plus it absolutely needs Microsoft Office Professional to run, which also isn't cheap). If given proper technical and software support, I can see how Kinect would be extremely useful in things like CAD for moving components around. Then again, given that I have ample experience of Microsoft's business "support", I very much doubt that will get off the ground either.

Well...The 360 Kinect is also aimed at non-gamers. Com'n Microsoft!

I dont have a 360, so I might as well buy 360 kinect bundle if I want to save some money...Hopefully the software is at a lesser cost stand alone.

I might have considered it at $100 but anymore is highway robbery. So no thanks M$

Anyone who would pay $250 for that crap is...well...RETARDED.

Am I supposed to be surprised?

Its M$...not surprised at all.

Kinect is already overpriced. When I heard that it was coming to PC I thought about it a bit, but when they raised the price I just say no.

@Gelugon_baat Yeah that's true. It may have new features that aren't capable with the current SDK, though I seriously doubt those features will remain exclusive to the "official" SDK. The hacking community has had a hayday with this device since it's introduction. That's what made Microsoft make the decision to out an SDK. They will have this thing fully unlocked in no time and there will be no need to spend the extra money.

@wwervin Did you not read the part where I said they already made back their money on the damn thing and it costs $50 to make?

Charging extra for an open source peripheral. m$ truly has earned their name.

This might be almost-sort-of justified if the hardware was upgraded a little bit, like if it was given higher resolution cameras than the ****** 320 x 240 sensors on the 360 Kinect. I'll assume that's not happening, though. It's probably the exact same hardware.

I'll sell my Kinect to someone for $250!:) Just foolin, I know they included this software, and tools to customize your Kinect, but that is some expensive software.

You guys could not be further from the truth. The Kinect dev kit is freely available at kinectforwindows.org and has been for a while. The price is simply higher because they think they can charge more. Just buy the Xbox version and download the dev kit.

@spoonybard-hahs What are you talking about? They're not screwing anyone over. This device is marketed towards other companies who will use the thing in non-gaming applications. There are plenty of things that can be done with the Kinect sensor. The price is perfectly justified. Like paranormalnut said, a regular dev kit costs more than the device itself for any other system, so why shouldn't it for the PC Kinect?

Keep in mind that a Dev kit 360 or PS3 is 150 bucks more to buy.

They probably subsidize the cost of the 360 version knowing people will buy games for it. And probably don't subsidize for PC. Makes sense.