Much to the chagrin of Kinectercisers everywhere, the rumored announcement of an all-in-one tracking system never materialized at E3. Microsoft evidently didn’t want to spoil the surprise, because it launched today with no warning at all. Major Nelson has all the details of Kinect PlayFit on his blog, but the general idea is to have a place that gathers data from all of your favorite exercise games so you don’t have to switch between them to see how you’ve been doing.
In addition to tracking other games, Kinect Fit Play has its own achievements, gamerscore, and avatar awards. If you’re in the US, Kinect PlayFit should be available now (although some of our staffers haven’t been able to get it yet). For everyone else, the new fitness tracker will be rolling out later this week. What do you all think about this new addition to the Kinect exercise family?
Check out the press release after the break.
Kinect PlayFit is a new fitness dashboard that aggregates and tracks the calories you burn as you play a variety of Kinect games, from “Dance Central 2” to “Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2012” to “Kinect Star Wars.”
Kinect PlayFit lets you view your personal stats over time and see leaderboards that show how you rank against Xbox LIVE members across the globe. Get credit for the calories you burn while having fun with Kinect, and earn Kinect PlayFit Achievements, Gamerscore and Avatar Awards.
Kinect PlayFit inspires an active and healthy lifestyle through fun and play:
- First of Its Kind – This is the first ever fitness tracking application on a video game console.
- Social Motivation – Kinect PlayFit keeps it social with activity challenges, rankings on leaderboards and integration with the Xbox LIVE community to break a sweat together.
- Survey Says – According to a recent survey* nearly 75 percent of respondents believe that video games should include a component that encourages physical activity. Also, 70 percent said that physically active video games can complement or supplement traditional exercise.
