Kinect PlayFit is a new fitness app on the Xbox 360 that tracks and aggregates the calories you burn while playing active games. Kinect PlayFit obviously requires a Kinect to track how vigorously your body is moving and is free to download.
The dashboard aggregates the calories you burn across your favourite games and allows you to compare against your friends and a global leaderboard. The idea here is simple, rather than the growing genre of fitness titles each collect their own stats in a silo’d environment, Microsoft are adding a layer on top. This makes a lot more sense really, particularly when you look at it in a similar light to your Xbox Gamerscore.
Kinect PlayFit also shows an understand that not all your friends will own the same supported titles like Dance Central, Your Shape: Fitness Evolved, Kinect Sports or even Kinect Star Wars. Today Kinect PlayFit supports 9 titles, which will only grow as new updates and titles are released.
One thing that’ll be interesting to see is how Achievements are dealt with. Given PlayFit has its own achievements, its possible that burning that fat could yield not only a game-specific achievement but also one for PlayFit. So now its over to you.. do you think comparing calories with friends will encourage you to workout more?
More information at Xbox.com.au
