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Fitness is about to get much more serious for Kinect gamers, with Microsoft rumoured to be launching a new universal tracking feature called Kinect Play Fit.
According to tech site The Verge’s sources, Microsoft is readying a dashboard update which will install the new feature. Kinect Play Fit is a fitness tracking system which will track your gameplay and store your stats across multiple games, not just specific fitness ones such as EA Sports Active 2.
Your stats are then stored in the cloud using Microsoft’s Skydrive Cloud Storage system, and can be retrieved through your console’s dashboard provided you have an internet connection.
Microsoft is also preparing a hardware accessory for Kinect fitness fanatics, called Joule. This little gadget tracks your heart rate while you use Kinect and wirelessly transmits it to your console.
This sort of thing has been done before in a way by EA with their aforementioned Sports Active 2 title for Kinect, although with Microsoft’s offering it will work on many different types of game. We think it’s a pretty good idea, because those who use Kinect as a way to get fit can only really tell just how well they’re getting on if they use a dedicated fitness game, not the more fun, yet still taxing games like Kinect Adventures.
We’re not too sure just when Kinect Play Fit and the Joule heart rate accessory will launch, but we’re told it will certainly arrive as part of a dashboard update. We reckon Microsoft will demonstrate it next month at the E3 games conference in Los Angeles, and release it shortly after that.
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Via: The Verge
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