A tipster has sent me the following email:

After Windows, After Xbox, Kinect Is Microsoft’s Next Planned World-Changer

May I point your critical eye in the direction of this post. I’m reading it and can’t help but feel it’s very MS PR. Just the opening paragraph alone “It’s also already sitting in more than 40 million living rooms.” is firing off alarm bells.

Crecente is also putting any comments suggesting PR piece in the ‘#cornfield:

• http://kotaku.com/comment/31453626
• http://kotaku.com/comment/31453534
• http://kotaku.com/comment/31453605

Which is always a sign you’ve struck a nerve.

Microsoft are spending $500million on this, it’d be no surprise if a cut of that went in Denton’s account.

Reminds me of this piece Crecente did a few months back that started off like a Note then turned feature set for XBL Family

So if you want to cast you eye over and comment feel free, just thought I’d highlight this article for you.

It doesn’t read like a Kotaku post - certainly it doesn’t read like any of McWhertor’s usual bollocks - but whether or not the guys at Special K wrote this is irrelevant. The piece reads like a PR fluff piece, and that’s enough. It comes across as Kotaku very shamelessly plugging Kinect. And what reason would “The Gamer’s Guide” really have to promote a product in this manner? I mean, really?

Going back through Kotaku’s older posts tagged Kinect, it seems they’ve been very careful about criticizing the product. They’ve had a pop at some of the marketing but rarely ever attack the actual product itself (or if they have, they’ve deleted those posts just like they did with their Juno: The Game reports back in ‘07). And it also seems like this is the first in a series of Kinect fluff pieces:

Stay tuned for our ongoing original coverage of Kinect, including reviews of launch games and hardware, hitting next week.

I can’t help but wonder how favorable these reviews will be.