Boxart for the first in the series.
Kinect Sports is a sports exergame developed by Rare as a launch title for the Xbox 360 Kinect and released as a pack-in game for the accessory. The game consists of six sports which are played by mimicking the motions used to play the sports in real life, all without the use of a physical controller.The first game in the series contains six sports: bowling, boxing, track & field, table tennis, soccer, and beach volleyball. It was released on November 4, 2010 as a pack-in for the Kinect.
On October 25, 2011 Microsoft released Kinect Sports: Season Two which contained the sports golf, darts, baseball, skiing, tennis, and American football. Basketball was later released as DLC. On September 18, 2012 both games would be rebundled as a single title, Kinect Sports Ultimate Collection.
On April 8, 2014 the final game in the series released, Kinect Sports Rivals which included a campaign mode as well as the sports bowling, jet ski racing, target shooting, soccer, tennis, and rock climbing.
Tropes featured across all of the games:
- Casual Video Game: A collection of common sports all of which are designed to be played in groups and with simplified rules for some of the more complex sports.
- Creator Cameo: The logos for Rare and Microsoft Game Studios appear throughout the game's venues.
- Exergaming: The games are sports titles that require the use of the Kinect meaning that your body gets very involved with gameplay.
- Jungle Japes: The mountain climbing minigame in Rivals appears to take place in a jungle setting with the player climbing structures so perfectly shaped, they only could be manmade.
- Minigame Game: All the games in the series are broken up into different sports, but the sports themselves also contain a series of minigames.
- Palmtree Panic: Beach Volleyball is played at Waveside, a resort located on a beach town.
- Product Placement: The first two games feature heavy advertising for T-Mobile and Samsung.
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The skiing game in Season Two is set in a large, snowy mountain range with very typical "snowy mountain top" decor.
- Tech-Demo Game: The first game was developed to showcase the Kinect's camera and ability to detect motion, and it was packed in with the device.
