Kinect Microsoft's hands-free Xbox 360 add-on is hitting the stores. Launch events like this one in Time Square are being used to get the world out around the world. Microsoft is hoping the Kinect connects with holiday shoppers. They recently raised their sale forecast to five million units. Mike Delman is the vice president for Xbox global marketing.

We think once people start playing this, you watch them. And an interesting thing is it's not only the people playing, they get energized and are rolling enthusiastic about it, but you'll find people actually gathering around and it's fun to watch people play. So we think this is gonna be a really hot holiday gift, gift-giving idea.

So as you can see, there is no hand controller with the Microsoft Kinect. My body is the controller. That's a big difference from competitors like the Nintendo Wii and the PlayStation Move.

Another big difference—price, at about $150 on top of buying an Xbox 360. It's more expensive than an Nintendo Wii, but CNN Stan Acamen believes there's a lot of hidden value for consumers.

For something it's basically a big super fancy Webcam. $150 may seem expensive but it's definitely more advanced than any Webcam that you have, and in fact, you use it as a game controller, as a motion controller for your console, as a voice command center and also things like a video version of Skype. You can video chat with people. It really makes me feel like, more like a premium console add-on than just a Webcam.

It's a high stakes game for Microsoft. The $20 billion US video game market has been hard hit by the economic downturn. So the pressure is on for Microsoft to score big with Kinect.

Bobbi Rebell, Reuters.