Microsoft Has Stopped Manufacturing The Kinect

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rgMekanic

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After 7 years of love and hate Microsoft is stopping production on the Kinect. Kinect’s creator, Alex Kipman, and Matthew Lapsen, the general manager of marketing for Xbox Devices in an interview with Fast Company. Microsoft has been slowly de-emphasized over the years with the removal of the bundle with the Xbox One, despite selling 35 million units since it's debut.Yet while the Kinect as a standalone product is off the market, its core sensor lives on. Kinect v4–and soon to be, v5–power Microsoft’s augmented reality Hololens, which Kipman also created.

I must say I'm a bit saddened by this. While I don't own an Xbox One, I have enjoyed the Kinect on our 360 quite a bit. The article cites the privacy concerns that arose with the Kinect that we all remember, now just a few years later people are paying for devices to record them in their home. And how many times has a gaming device been used to secure a border?

“Trust is something you earn in drops and lose in buckets,” says Kipman, alluding to industry-wide concern over consumer privacy. “I’d say Kinect started the process in 2010 in having to earn drops of trust. Any number of [bad] events in the world, each one, you lose a bucket.” But it wouldn’t be trust, or privacy, that would lose the Xbox consumer. It would be a fickle fanbase that thought innovation came at the price of fun.
 
The Kinect 2 bar was one hell of a programmable platform. So it goes.
 
OP raises a good point. I used to say in the wake of all the Windows 10 hysteria, everyone is still using Google Chrome and Android right? Same thing.
 
ms coulda saved it 35 mill uinits even it was through a forced xbone bundle is not a bad base to build from. if they had atleast deeveolped or funded some decent games for it they coulda have saved it or atleast made peeps consider using it.
 
When I bought an Xbox One, I deliberately purchased one with the Kinect sensor - not because I particularly wanted one for myself, but because my daughter and her friends go crazy-ape mental having fun playing various games such as Just Dance on it. It works amazingly well to be honest, and I'm sure more uses could have been thought up for it. Guess it just wasn't for everyone though.
 
MS gave up on Kinect. Interesting concept just not very useful, except to bark voice commands at your Xbox. Watch voice commands magically appear in the Xbox X with some kind of microphone built into the controller.
 
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I understand what Microsoft wanted to do with the Kinect bundle, but being $100 more out the gate was suicide. They should have eaten the $100. Unfortunately, they also got hit with the nonsense about poorer graphics that nobody would really notice anyways while playing.
 
That's unfortunate. Bought the 360 Kinect bundle specifically for Just Dance. Had a blast with the wife. Was actually planning to plug it back in one of these days now that the kids are old enough and love to 'dance'.
 
Kinect never worked out for its intended purposes, but a lot of cool nifty projects and experiments have been made and conducted with the thing on PC. I think they should keep making and selling it for that reason. Kinect appeared to be very useful outside of its original purpose. Ah well. You won't see my ass shedding any dang tears for it. Sony had the good sense to toss out Move when it failed miserably (and rather quickly). Microsoft kept Kinect for waaay too damn long. Plus they also forced it on consumers when the XB1 launched, which wasn't cool. Well, look where Kinect ended up. How long until VR ends up going the same way, I wonder. Wouldn't that be nice.
 
They should have developed it further for use with VR headsets. 2 connects would have made one hell of a spacial tracking system.
 
Riccochet said:
They should have developed it further for use with VR headsets. 2 connects would have made one hell of a spacial tracking system.
Click to expand...

It would. It sounds like they are using the Kinect technology in their Mixed Reality stuff.

Kinect + VR would be awesome. But, the original Xbox One + VR probably wouldn't do too well. People were complaining about lower resolution and framerates vs. PS4. Xbox One X could probably do it.
 
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