thats what im saying. I for one have no interest, but for those interested, for a single entry price, every single person in your home has access to its voice recognition and gaming....how is price even relevent when we are talking high end $150? It doesnt make sense, i probably shouldnt assume here but my assumption is the tech, as gathered from my impressions, is cool, no doubt, but i dont think people care about using remotes and i think based on the largely controlled environments and perfect condition used in demos, there might be misfire....i dont know though.

The biggest problem right now that i see via amazon.com is that each of those games demoed yesterday cost a full MSRP $60 each, which is pure suicide.

In general though, at least Harmonix and Ubisoft showed off some good uses, but im fearful, like the Wii, it wont expand enough but maybe it will.

It fucked up measuring the height in Your Shape.

She was 5'8 at MS conference and 5'6 -5'7 when Ubisoft showed it later. Her arms and legs had shrunk too. I thought height would be fairly straight forward.

Miscrosoft: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewlJTZw3f70

Ubisoft: http://www.youtube.com/user/ubisoft#p/c/C9646F6E19BB9CF1/7/q6YKz-q-gl4

Did she really say she was 5'9 backstage?

I'm not completely sold on the tech yet either. The lag from all the demos so far is noticeable and for a tech-head like myself it would become aggravating in a gaming context. Also as you said the software just isn't my cup of tea for the most part. My family would absolutely love this stuff though because they're afraid of my tech setup and how many remotes and controllers I have laying around. 

My biggest pull to actually buying the hardware is so I can play around with it myself and possibly come up with new uses for it or to simply toy around with it. I'm sure some sort of small dev community for integrating the tech onto the PC will rise from the woodwork and I'm very much looking forward to being a part of it.

So if I'm Joe Consumer, who for whatever reason hasn't already bought a Wii or a 360, amazon.com, here are my options;

Black Wii Bundle- 200$ 210$ for 3 wiimotes and 3 nunchucks (for my family or friends who also don't own Wiis) 8 rechargeable AA's and a charger, in this case lets say the Sanyo Eneloop AA 4 pack w/ charger 20$ and a 4 pack of Eneloop AAs 10$ and thats 440$ before wii fit (balance board) or mario kart (steering wheel)

Or

Xbox 360 Arcade for 150$ 150$ for Kinect (for my family/friends) 29-45$ for a 16GB flash drive or $10 for a 2GB drive (for dwnloadable game content), comes to 310 to 345$ if I don't buy a wifi adapter or become a gold member of XBL.

I would love this for PC, but for me i only use laptops so its be awkward.....if MSFT could find a way to build kinect tech. into touch screen PC's it could be much more useful, imo. I think this is something they did backwards. This should have rolled out on PC, then maybe introduced to gaming later.

By introducing to PC's first it allows webcam functionality across a MUCH larger userbase, now it requires a 360 to 360. It could have introduced using the voice recognition to users of Windows Media Center, and they could have still put you in the game only on a smaller scale for PC or even flash games ala PSEye, but th ebig thing would have been people owning PC's could easily pick it up and the userbase is vast. Would have been a better idea to introduce the tech, imo.

Id buy it, like you, to play around with it however i couldnt use it with my main media hub or BD's i dont think its worth buying it with a 360, thats why integration with PC's would have been more important than 360's.

It's a beta, do you really expect it to not have any bugs?

Can you use connect to webchat as a silver member? I dont think they were very specific on what XBL plan was needed to use everything, im assuming silver is all that is required but who knows.

Your pricing structure seems pretty reasonable, though. Price really shouldnt be a hinderence, thats why i find it suspicious all of the reviews throw that red flag in there as if its a fall back for a reason why kinect doesnt sell....when in reality as youve pointed out, price really shouldnt be an issue.

That wasn't lag, that was just because the image is mirrored.

something theyve been working on for this long, and is hardware going into production in 3-4 months....id think it should be able to nail down its rudimentary physics by now.

But still, ive never really believed it was ever going to be as great as hyped, this issue doesnt concern me. In fact nohing about it does, it functions like most of us have always seen and imagined. You pretty much mail in responses and your avatar mimmicks it in the best way it can. Its not finite and its not responsive enough to be immersive. Its a cool gadget that a lot of families and kids will have a lot of fun with but will have forgetable software.

It's not just Your Shape.

On Dance Central during the chickendance, the screen shows the geeky dude's avatar and 2 backing dancers but then the real life backing dancers jump in. Why? It makes no difference to the onscreen action. So is it multiplayer or were MS giving the impression that it was?

Lots of smoke and mirrors.