All I know is that the article basically told us absolutely nothing. I give them the middle finger award.

I think a lot of people would consider a $99 price point to be "competitive" but when it comes to marketing, it's easy to justify any price within reason as competitive when you start throwing in reasons like R&D costs, marketing costs, "added entertainment value," "unique experience," whatever.

Their marketing guys could even resort to busting out charts showing the cost of Kinect relative to a full set of Move or Wii controllers demonstrating how it's actually cheaper, which still doesn't change the fact that you'd still be paying $149 for a camera.

I would hope to see a stand alone peripheral for $99, at least for the Kinect port ready 360 S, but it may well be that the only way to get a $99 Kinect camera is buy buying a $299 Arcade bundle or $399 250GB bundle.

except you're wrong... there is a lot of positive buzz about Natal especially in the mainstream media

Being that his comment was about being affordable to attract gamers, I think people may be reading too much into this if they think it really relates to the price of the stand alone Kinect system. With how Microsoft has operated in the past it wouldn’t surprise me to see a pricing structure like the following:

1. Kinect stand alone hardware $149
2. Kinect Game $60
3. Kinect hardware and game bundle $179 ($30 savings)
4. XBox 360 Arcade, Kinect hardware and Game Bundle $349 ($60 savings)
5. XBox 360 Elite, Kinect Hardware and Game Bundle $399. (over $100 in savings)

Now, the numbers I listed were (mostly) for demonstration of how discussing "value" for new customers is not the same as offering an add on that is affordable to existing customers.

Well, based on the presentation its clear MSFT isnt too interested in selling to traditional xbox 360 users. Their history of charging an arm and leg for accessories combined with the presentation lead me to believe theyre withholding infor because what we will see after all the current users interested in upgrading buy a slim, MSFT will sweep in and announce the slim kinect 250gb bundle for $299 this holiday, then drop the slim to $250 on its own with natal probably at the $150 stand alone.

MSFT has a knack for making us go WTF with their accessory prices compared to the logical bundled prices and i feel MSFT is far mor einterested in selling new consoles than Natal to existing users.

Just like if youve been interested in a larger harddrive MSFT almost made you think twice about just buying  anew xbox to get one based on their pricing, i think we will see the same thing here. This way existing users who dont upgrade to the slim who want natal will almost be forced to upgrade and buy a new console come november.....

Pretty obvious why theyre not announcing the price, capitalize on upgrades now, capitalize on bundles later.

As crazy as it sounds, I'm inclined to believe this could be the approach MS takes when they release the Kinect bundles; making it a "better value" to simply start over and buy a new console, rather than say pay over $100 to upgrade a HDD for example.

I'm not fully convinced a $399 250GB/Kinect bundle would match this mindset, but... a $299 250GB/Kinect bundle would fall squarely into this strategy. As long as MS isn't actually losing money on each of these bundles (even if they were barely breaking even), there isn't any real downside to selling a new Kinect bundle to a significant percentage of their existing user base.

Plus if the Kinect games stay priced at $60 (none of which seen during the E3 conference really justify a full game price), they will recover any losses on Kinect hardware, assuming current 360 owners aren't just buying Kinect to wave their hands and talk to their Xbox while watching movies.

There would definitely be some sore customers though if this were the scenario, namely EVERYONE who bought a 360 S at $299. All of those consumers would probably be screaming "WHERE'S MY FREE KINECT MS?!!!!!" making the $399 bundle price a lot more plausible, making it only a $50 loss for anyone who bought a 360 S for $299 and then paid another $149 for Kinect.

Also, if MS does charge more for the non-Kinect port equipped older 360s (say, $189) again, this would make the allure of simply "starting over" with a 360 S a legit option if the larger 250GB HDD and WiFi N factor into the picture to current 360 owners.

I don't like it when companies start talking about value rather than it being specifically cheap. 

I wouldn't worry, both times they've talked about it they emphasis on competitivness more than value for money.

Given that several retailers (in different countries) have already leaked similar prices (> $150 before tax, in the case of Denmark it was $170 before tax), I think it's quite unlikely it will cost significantly less than those leaked prices.

It will be priced probably between $100-150.  Personally I don't really care, because I've already pre-ordered mine through Amazon.

It looked like the people at E3 had a blast and since being married with 2 small daughters I have enjoyed the more casual side of gaming lately.  I still like my Mainstream M rated game or RPG every now and then.

But, I look at casual gaming in a new light.  In a matter of fact I was looking into buying a wii until I heard about this.

I think it looks soo much better being controller free and everything.  Can't wait for this to come out and my daughters get a little order. 

I already know me and my wife will have a blast with Kinect Sports and Kinect adventures.