Joy Ride Confirmed No Longer Free

The Xbox 360 arcade racing game Joy Ride was originally unveiled as a free downloadable game at E3 2009. This year, it was revealed once more in playable form as a Kinect title, but whether or not it remained downloadable or free was not discussed.

With the final price reveal for Kinect earlier today, we discovered that the new device will feature Kinect Adventures as a pack-in game, which had me wondering what that means for Joy Ride and its potential cost. Further fueling the fire, retailers such as GameStop and Amazon have Joy Ride listed as a retail title.

I contacted Microsoft with the question, and they confirmed that Joy Ride is now a retail title priced at $49.99. They provided no comment as far as what has changed with the game to warrant the full retail treatment beyond the addition of Kinect controls. I checked the game out at E3 and enjoyed what I played, but we'll need to wait to test out the full release this fall.

[Thanks to @SFXMissJess for the tip.]