Gamestop is offering up pre-orders now for Kinect, priced at $149.99, which corroborates the pre-E3 rumors. First, I'm wondering if this is a speculated price on Gamestop's side, since they have been known to do such things. Second, is Microsoft fucking kidding?! Unless it comes bundled with a full-featured piece of software, 150 dollars is a terrible value for something most people aren't even sold on yet. Gamers seem disinterested, and the lay consumer doesn't even know what the fuck Kinect is yet. If Microsoft was smart, they'd rely on buzz from the early-adopters, and those early-adopters are gonna have some serious qualms shelling out 150 dollars for a freakin' eye toy. Why not buy a wii for 200 dollars instead? That's a game console, with wii sports (or whatever, Mario Galaxy probably) and you already know about it from the incredible PR. This Christmas, Nintendo is going to mop the floor with Sony and Microsoft AGAIN unless Sony can pull some serious magic out of it's ass by that time. This is not how you salvage a win this year Microsoft, this will be remembered as the time you fucked it all up by blowing your wad on an over-priced, under-functioning (But I suppose the jury's still out on that one) piece of hardware that no one bought.  
 
Thoughts? 
 
Edit: I am a goddamned fool. Touche Microsoft.

Gamestop is offering up pre-orders now for Kinect, priced at $149.99, which corroborates the pre-E3 rumors. First, I'm wondering if this is a speculated price on Gamestop's side, since they have been known to do such things. Second, is Microsoft fucking kidding?! Unless it comes bundled with a full-featured piece of software, 150 dollars is a terrible value for something most people aren't even sold on yet. Gamers seem disinterested, and the lay consumer doesn't even know what the fuck Kinect is yet. If Microsoft was smart, they'd rely on buzz from the early-adopters, and those early-adopters are gonna have some serious qualms shelling out 150 dollars for a freakin' eye toy. Why not buy a wii for 200 dollars instead? That's a game console, with wii sports (or whatever, Mario Galaxy probably) and you already know about it from the incredible PR. This Christmas, Nintendo is going to mop the floor with Sony and Microsoft AGAIN unless Sony can pull some serious magic out of it's ass by that time. This is not how you salvage a win this year Microsoft, this will be remembered as the time you fucked it all up by blowing your wad on an over-priced, under-functioning (But I suppose the jury's still out on that one) piece of hardware that no one bought.  
 
Thoughts? 
 
Edit: I am a goddamned fool. Touche Microsoft.

Amazon also has it at that price iirc, so who knows.

This has been talked about quite a bit before, Gamestop is by no means the only major retailer pricing it at $149.99 but these are just placeholder prices, we have yet for Microsoft to announce the actual price and when they do it better be pretty cheap if they want to compete with the Wii and Playstation Move.

How many people can it recognize?  i say for whats it doing ,for 2-4 players it is worth it.

Microsoft hasn't officially announced the price, i'm pretty sure...  But if it is 149.99, I know a lot of people who would be lost customers...

i got an e-mail from amazon regarding pre-ordering Kinect. so im pretty sure the $150 is the price for the stand-alone unit.

From what I understand, the price is speculative. The same way that the pricing on every newly announced game coming out of E3 is set at $70, even though most of those games will be $60. (Games are sometimes $70 in Canada, like Bad Company 2).
 
$150 seems pretty expensive for Kinect at first, but the general public is pretty interested in it since the wii kind of sucks and the Kinect looks so much more powerful.
 
Also, consider that this $150 investment is all you need (other than a 360) for 4 players to play games? 4 Wii remotes is already totalling $180 without nunchuks (I'll give you $135 since one comes with the wii =P) and thats not including the $75-90 for 3 more nunchuks or however much it costs for 3-4 Wii Motion Plus attachments to make it work in a way that is somewhat similar to the Move and Kinect.
 
As for the Playstation Move, $50 per person MINIMUM, means $200 for a basic setup, plus $50 for the camera, and if you need the Navigation controller too, thats an additional $30 per person.
 
So if we assume my pricing is correct (Its probably a little off since I haven't checked prices in a while~), then the cost for 4 people to have the best possible experience with each console's motion hardware is:
 

Wii: $310
 ($135 for 3 remotes + $75 for 3 nunchuks + 4 Wii Motion Plus at $25[price?])
Move:  $320
 (3 Move controllers + 4 Navigation controllers + 1 Playstation Eye)
Kinect: $150
 (1 Kinect camera)
  
When you look at it this way, its easier to see why the Kinect is priced the way it is, and why it will sell so well to the casual audiences. Microsoft has been pushing its casual family-friendly Kinect experience bullshit all E3 because they know that when you look at it from this perspective, its an incredible deal.
 
To look at it another way, lets factor in console prices, for those new to the entire experience.
 
Wii: $520
   (Above + console[$210])
Move: EST $620 
   (Assuming PS3 bundle with camera and 1 move controller, no navigation controller for $349)
Kinect: EST $300 - $350
   (Kinect 360 arcade bundle [Assuming arcade at $199 Kinect is either adding $100 or $150])
 
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So yeah, I think the Kinect pricing is very fair. Its fairly expensive for a hardcore gamer such as ourselves since we will probably play it by ourselves (or more likely, not at all). But the pricing point for Kinect makes a lot of sense from a marketing perspective; the Kinect is cheap enough that any core gamers interested in it will be able to afford it, while still generating profit and being the cheapest option for the casual audience.
 
I'm no marketing person, but I expect Kinect to destroy the Move in sales this holiday.
 
Although to be fair, the Move isn't as casual friendly, since Sony didn't completely sell its soul to the movement controller gods and tried to make the product a worthwhile purchace and platform for hardcore gamers to enjoy. Its got buttons! and it works. I feel like the Move is going to be what we wanted the Wii to be.
 
Anyways, bam!