Xbox One's Standalone Kinect Coming In October For $150

Update: Microsoft has confirmed the rumors. The standalone Kinect will be available starting on October 7th.

"The standalone Kinect sensor comes with Dance Central Spotlight, the latest in the dance series from developer Harmonix, which will be available as a digital download and features a soundtrack of 10 hot tracks. Kinect with Dance Central Spotlight will be available at retailers for $149.99," the company said on Xbox Wire.

Original article: The Kinect 2.0 hasn't had a very fruitful or worthwhile life. It's short span on the market has been a turbulent and troubled one. However, Microsoft is still hedging bets on the camera device becoming something more than the butt of NSA jokes by possibly making it a standalone accessory starting this October.

According to WPCentral notes that they have “learned” that the Kinect 2.0 could be coming to retail shelves this fall as a standalone product for $149.99.

Unfortunately the site doesn't say where they retrieved their information from, nor did they disclose what the source of their information happened to be. For all we know this could have been some anonymous person sending out an anonymous email that the device would be available as a standalone accessory in time for the holiday season.

A few other sites are also reporting the same thing, though again, the sources are sketchy.

It feels like rumor-bait to me. It's an easy sell on a story to get people hyped for the Kinect 2.0 to land on retail shelves just in time for the holidays. However, as easy as it is to land on the side of rumor-bait, it's also possible that it really is something Microsoft is legitimately pursuing for the somewhat abandoned peripheral of the Xbox One.

Back in June the company announced that they would selling their third-generation home console without Kinect for $399. This actually came just a few months after Microsoft had mentioned that they would not be selling a $399 console.

The Kinect-less Xbox One did manage to help the console double sales throughout June, and despite not making any figures public about the console's sales output, Microsoft did say that the momentum for the console was consistent.

Of course, with the $399 model of the Xbox One being the prime focus of Microsoft – a model, I might add, that has nothing whatsoever to do with Kinect – it would be a reasonable thing to at least allow consumers to purchase the peripheral separately for those who did want the camera upgrade sometime down the road. Right now there's no way to get that kind of functionality (assuming you changed your mind and did want to flail and flap your arms and legs in front the TV for whatever reason).

The idea of being able to purchase a standalone version of Kinect 2.0 for $149.99 would at least give gamers the option to satisfy their need to get physical while they play games. Of course, if you actually tally up your total purchase you would actually find yourself paying $50 more if you bought Kinect and an Xbox One separately, as opposed to just getting the $500 bundle.

Given the current market absence of Kinect 2.0 following the release of the $399 SKU, it isn't too much of a stretch for me to see Microsoft's heavily invested peripheral becoming available at local retailers as a standalone.

But we still have to remember that until Microsoft makes the announcement official, it's all just hearsay and rumors for now... no matter how much some people might like it this news to be true.