A few months ago Microsoft pulled an Oprah by giving free Xbox 360 S consoles to members of the press who were at their E3 media briefing. A few months later, Oprah is pulling an Oprah by giving the members of her studio audience a free Xbox 360 and Kinect.
It looks like Microsoft has definitely found their target audience with this peripheral. That’s not a bad thing, but just look at the crowd go wild. They definitely don’t look like your typical Gears of War fans, but a motion tracking device that sits on your TV will do it. Either that, or now they realize they’ve just saved about $300 this Christmas.
I can’t can’t deny that it would be awesome to get the set for free, but I can’t see myself spending $150 on the peripheral and another $50 on Dance Central. That’s $200, and much more than I am willing to spend.
Still, this was a smart way to market the device: show it to the more “casual” gaming audience on Oprah, hand it out for free and make a whole lot of new fans. In addition to that, those watching the show are also intrigued now, but we’ll see how interested they are when they see the price.
If you want more info on Kinect, check out a couple of our past posts: Here some of the limitations of the device, and here are some mounts that will help keep your Kinect where you want it to be.