Microsoft has gone on record stating that the Kinect will be getting official pricing at Gamescon. Speaking with GI.biz, the games developer has stated that Kinect will be priced at the event later in August. That’s according to Oliver Kaltner, Entertainment & Devices country manager in Germany.
"I believe that the price point is not the critical topic, but something you need at the end of the communication in order to place a product properly into a market. From that standpoint pricing is an important topic for our target groups, our partners and, of course, also for us.”
"I also think it is the right decision not to determine price points now, because it distracts completely from our actual core story with all its possibilities in the area of gaming, movie, music and social entertainment. We firmly believe that we can offer an unique innovation.”
"We have first and foremost a product to offer that doesn't have any entry barriers - which means that the access to fun, family entertainment and social entertainment is a direct access. I would never be able to communicate all these aspects if we mentioned a price point.”
"That would mean that the price is the key point of our message, and it does not belong there for now. We will find a price which is attractive in the market," he added.
Sony has already priced the Move system at $49.99 (just for the controller), and Microsoft’s Kinect could be anywhere from $49.99 to upwards of $149.99. Though speculation from analysts stressed the points of a $49.99 Kinect, there seem to be several retailers posting up $149.99 prices within inventory records.
"Beyond that we have to consider that E3 is a very important event for the whole industry. But we are still two weeks in our last fiscal year. That means we are in the middle of the endgame of finalizing our budgets and we of course use our insight from E3 to evaluate the market volume again.”
"Being responsible for the business in Germany, it comes in handy to still have a certain flexibility. In eight weeks we are at gamescom and we will know the price not later than that, because we will start to sell [to retail]."
"Microsoft is without doubt the significant force at E3 this year," he claimed. "However, for me personally it is even more important what I can learn out of that for gamescom.
"I am very proud to say that Microsoft as a corporation did understand, how important gamescom is. We will have a much bigger and more spectacular appearance at gamescom this year than we did last year.”
"We have invested well - and because we did not unveil everything on E3 we will have also for gamescom a lot of fresh information."
