Kinect Playfit

Microsoft today unveiled Kinect PlayFit, a new Kinect fitness dashboard on Xbox LIVE that lets players track calories burned across multiple Kinect games. Available as a free download from the Xbox LIVE Marketplace, the app calculates and aggregates the calories players burn so they can track their progress over time, see how they rank against friends, and earn Xbox achievements.

Kinect PlayFit lets players track their calorie burn across multiple games.

The goal of the app is to motivate families to get off the couch and reward them for having fun, said Chuck Frizelle, executive producer for Kinect PlayFit.

Kinect PlayFit will track fitness progress across a dozen games at first, with more titles to come later, Frizelle said. The dashboard lets players view their daily, weekly, monthly, and overall calorie burn totals, and Xbox leaderboards offer the chance to compare progress with friends and the overall Xbox LIVE community. Players can also earn up to 20 Xbox achievements, including bonus avatar awards, and post them on Facebook.

The key features - rewarding players for their time and effort with achievements, giving them challenges, and comparing their calorie burn totals with friends -make Kinect PlayFit a healthy parallel to the joystick-based-gamer score.