Xbox 360's Kinect Sports Facebook app launches, what about Xbox Live?

While critics and consumers are pretty divided on Microsoft's new Kinect for the Xbox 360, that's not going to stop Kinect Sports-developer Rare Studios from supporting their launch game. Going with that, Rare just launched a Facebook app to support Kinect Sports internationally by allowing players to create leagues and upload their videos for all to see. The Kinect has been largely marketed and approached as a social experience, designed to bring families and friends together instantly in the home by Avatar recognition and on the web through video sharing and chat.

With the Kinect Sports Facebook app, Rare hopes to leverage the power of the social network to create a social hub for all Kinect Sports players to go. But we're a bit confused. Why make a separate Facebook app when the Xbox 360 already supports Facebook--not to mention it already supports online multiplayer? It's odd that this feature wasn't included in Kinect Sports from the beginning or done through Xbox Live.

These leagues acts as small tournaments rather than something like a full season, but track individual players' stats and position in the leaderboard. After importing their Avatar using Windows Live ID, players can the join the default international leagues of each sport at varying difficulties or create their own leagues with up to 10 games. Then you'll have to invite your Facebook friends to get started, but there doesn't seem to be any way of knowing which friends actually have Kinect Sports. Whoever remains on top after the set amount of games is the winner and the league ends, forcing players to create another.

Again, the thing about this app that snags us is, aside from using your pool of Facebook friends (who may or may not even own a Kinect), it doesn't seem to use the network for much else. I doubt this is what Libe had in mind. While we're all for new ways to bridge the gap between Facebook and traditional games, couldn't this have been done just using Xbox Live?

[Via All Facebook]

What do you think about a Facebook app for a game on Xbox? Will you be using this to compete with friends and track your performance online? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.