By Brian Crecente

Microsoft's Take On The Cost of Motion Gaming

This look at Microsoft's internal take on the true cost of motion gaming, obtained by Kotaku, has its charm, but isn't completely anchored in reality.

Microsoft, it seems, makes the argument that you need all of the stuff shown from Sony and Nintendo to match the motion-controlling abilities of Kinect on the PS3 and Wii. But it's hardly an apples-to-apples comparison.

The same is true for this other slide, showing the cost for existing owners of the three systems.

So what is a fair comparison? That's hard to say, but lets look at all of the costs associated with all three systems:

Microsoft's Take On The Cost of Motion Gaming The cheapest way to get the Xbox 360 Kinect experience is to buy their new bundle, which includes Kinect, Kinect Adventures and an Xbox 360 with 4GB of memory for $300. You'll most likely want to buy an add-on hard drive, but Microsoft hasn't announced any pricing on those. Judging by previous experience, though, it's not going to be cheap.

If you already own the console, then you'll need to pick up the Kinect bundle, which will set you back $150 and includes Kinect Adventures.

Microsoft's Take On The Cost of Motion Gaming You can pick up a Wii for $200 and that includes the sensor bar, single remote, single nunchuk, a MotionPlus add-on and copies of Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort. Extra remotes with the MotionPlus included will run you $50, while an extra Nunchuk will set you back $20. It seems like a bit of a stretch to include the Balance Board in here, but if you did that's $100 with a copy of the game Wii Fit.

Microsoft's Take On The Cost of Motion Gaming One of the cheapest ways to get the PS3 Move experience is to buy their new bundle, due on Sept. 19, for $400. That bundle comes with a PS3, a Move controller, a Playstation Eye camera, a copy of Sports Champions and the Move game demo disc. It's worth noting that Sony apparently hasn't mentioned which PS3 you get in that bundle. We're going to assume the 120 GB and not some specially-gimped, hard-drive-free model.

If you already own a PS3, but not the camera, you'll need to pick up the $100 Playstation Move bundle, which includes a single controller, the required camera and a copy of Sports Champions. The Navigation controller for the Move sells for $30, while extra Move controllers sell for $50. If you already own a PS3 and a Playstation Eye camera, than you just need to pick up the Move controller.

The games for both Wii and PS3 motion-gaming have different requirements, like multiple controllers or extra add-ons like the Navigator controller for the PS3 or the Balance Board for the Wii.

For instance, while both the Wii Sports games and the PS3's Sports Champions can be played with the controller the console comes with, both also support playing with two controllers. This is why doing a direct comparison with the Xbox 360's Kinect is tricky.

One could easily argue either end of the cost spectrum for both consoles, the reality is that the cost and your mileage with any of these systems is going to depend entirely on what you want to get out of the experience.