Microsoft prices Kinect at A$199 for Australia

Rumours about possible Aussie pricing for Microsoft's Kinect camera hit their peak last week when Australia's largest video games retailer, EB Games Australia, listed an estimated price for the peripheral at A$198.00 ($173). At the time, Microsoft remained coy, declining to comment on the rumour, but a week later the company told a very different story.

It seems that EB Games' estimated price was pretty close to the money, with Microsoft Australia announcing that the Kinect camera will be shipping Down Under for A$199 ($174). The software giant pushed heavily to get Kinect hardware in front of consumers at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles but neglected to include several important details about the peripheral, including a price and date. These omissions led many to speculate that the camera would cost almost half the value of an Xbox 360 console. Kinect will launch in North America on November 4, but no firm release date has been confirmed for Australia, with Xbox Australia simply saying that the product will arrive "before Christmas."

Microsoft also took the opportunity to confirm that the new 4GB Xbox 360 bundle would be coming Down Under with a price tag of A$449 ($393), but like for the stand-alone Kinect camera, no release date was given. The bundle includes the new slim Xbox 360 console with 4GB of internal memory, a Kinect camera, and a copy of Kinect Adventures.

Check out our recent hands-on impressions of some of the games you will be able to play with Kinect when it launches this year.