During their last CES Keynote speech last night Microsoft announced that Kinect for Windows will be available on February 1st. While they didn't announce pricing for the units at the show, Amazon has
listed the
Kinect Sensor for Windows at $249.99 which is a full $100 more than the Xbox 360 unit.
The description includes this verbiage:
This Kinect Sensor for Windows has a shortened USB cable to ensure reliability across a broad range of computers and includes a small dongle to improve coexistence with other USB peripherals. The new firmware enables the depth camera to see objects as close as 50 centimeters in front of the device without losing accuracy or precision, with graceful degradation down to 40 centimeters. “Near Mode” will enable a whole new class of “close up” applications, beyond the living room scenarios for Kinect for Xbox 360.
I'm still not sure how that justifies an extra $100 in price but I'm hoping we'll get more details soon on the product as I think we're going to see some cool stuff come out for Kinect on the Windows side of things.
