Well, the motion control part of it is the big selling point, so I'd say probably not...

...I'll end up getting it more for the ability to use motion and voice commands to control the dashboard, as well as just to have a shiny new toy...

GameInformer's review basically states the following:

- Lag between actual motion and Kinect animation is substantial. An example presented was how a user will land from a jump before the camera image on the game even begins a jump.

- Price tag is much higher than what was expected prior to E3, and there is no indication as to how much the Kinect games will cost (hopes are somewhere around $39.99).

- Paying $150.00 for the Kinect camera is only slighly lower than buying a Wii console, currently priced at $199.99

Not that I'm in the market obviously, but personally I'd buy the Wii because they got all that other crap right, and then I get all the Mario games available ... and probably far more classic Nintendo titles here and there to boot. Don't they have license to use Midway products, or am I making that up?

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

I believe Nintendo does own the Midway license now, yes.

And I agree Don; the Wii already has the motion technology down at this point and I don't really see there being much difference with what Microsoft or Sony are coming out with. I personally own both an XBox and a Wii, so paying $150 for a camera to do basically the same thing the Wii can do doesn't make much sense to me right now.

i'm in the same situation. the kids enjoy the wii. if I didn't have the wii, i might go with kinect. but i can't imagine the hard core gamer games are ever going to utilize that technology.

Lipid, you have this, right?

How's the WiFi and whatnot working?

I haven't used the WiFi a whole lot...did the first couple nights just to test it out (didn't notice a difference) but since have plugged it in via ethernet.

No HD cables with the PS3. I had to buy them separately.

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Second City Saint

Yeah, I was thinking that was I case...I know mine came with them but that was 3 years ago and I do remember hearing some bitter people bitching about how the video game companies are too cheap to include them now.

So is this new unit worth buying at this time if I don't really plan on buying Kinect anytime soon? I mean, is it really that big of a difference from the other 360's?

What size hard drive do you have now? Further, what size hard drive comes with the new one? That's a consideration outside the whole Kinect silliness.

_________________
Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

You sick fucker

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You never miss your wealth, till your well went dry
Seem like only yesterday, you were here smiling
Now you gone away, but I know you in a better place
No traces of you, what can I do?
Alone and confused

The new HD is 250gb, which is considerably larger than what I currently own. However, I do not store a ton of stuff on the console I currently own.

My take:

The unit is quieter...I wouldn't go so far as to say it's "whisper quiet" like Major Nelson says, but it's still a noticeable improvement...supposedly the RRoD issue has been solved (I'll believe this if we don't hear any complaints a year from now) and the box shuts itself off if it's not getting the ventilation it needs...the bigger hard drive is nice, especially since I tend to fill it up with videos and games pretty quickly...the lack of memory card slots was a slight bummer for me, but now that the 360 supports USB flash drives that's a minor complaint at best...a built in optical audo output is nice if you dig that sort of thing (I still used HDMI)...also, not that this really matters, but it just looks better...

All in all, it's definately an improvement over the previous Elite, and considering that the upgrade to a 250GB hard drive and N wireless would cost 230 bucks, the $300 price tag is a good deal in my book. However, if you don't need the bigger hard drive, have no use for Wi-Fi support, and have an otherwise perfectly working 360 (I use that phrase loosely), it's probably not worth the investment.

If I bought the new one, what is the easiest way to transfer all my data on my other harddrive to the new console?

Well, they make a transfer cable that lets you hook up a hard drive to one of the USB ports and transfer files that way...I wasn't impressed with the speed, but it got the job done...pretty sure they are selling these by themselves now but if you know anyone who has bought a standalone hard drive in the past, they should have one...

...however, if you are going to transfer the licenses over from the old box to the new box on all your downloads, I would suggest you just redownload any videos/DLC/etc that you got from the marketplace...the Xbox has a horrible method for transfering licenses that involves selecting each piece of content and "downloading" it again (I put quotes there because it doesn't download the whole file again...it just downloads a new license that lets you use that piece of content on the Xbox, even when you aren't signed into Live)...thus, if you have a significant quantity of items you are transfering, you are looking at spending a good hour just going through the download history telling the box to download stuff over again...

...of course, if you are like me and are almost always connected to Live (only time I'm not is if the internet is out) the license thing isn't really an issue, as you can use any content you purchased from your account on any 360, as long as you are connected.