Microsoft’s Kinect was designed to bring a little exercise into the otherwise sedentary world of video games, and for the most part, it’s succeeded at doing just that. Now the Internet is buzzing about a potential new upgrade for the Xbox 360 and Kinect. As reported by The Verge, Microsoft will soon launch a new fitness-based service for the Xbox 360 dashboard called Kinect Play Fit. Accompanying the dashboard upgrade will be a heart rate monitor codenamed Joule. Combined, the service and heart rate monitor will let gamers track their physical activity across multiple Kinect games letting users store metrics, achievements, and badges all in the cloud.
A major component of this new dashboard upgrade will be the Joule heart rate monitor. It will function much like a traditional wireless heart rate monitor encouraging gamers to keep their heart rate within their target goal. The Joule monitor will be compatible with most Kinect games, although it won’t be mandatory for any of the games or services provided by Kinect Fit Play.
There’s no solid release date for Kinect Play Fit, but sources indicate it may come bundled with a future dashboard update and could make its big-screen debut as early next month at the Electronics Entertainment Expo (E3).