Home Gaming Microsoft halts production of PC Kinect

Microsoft halts production of PC Kinect

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Xbox one kinect 2

I don’t have a Kinect. You would think as the only woman in the team, they would have sent me one as well as a variety of fitness or dancing games. However, my Xbox One came solely with the console and controller. I still have mixed feelings at the idea of a camera in my living room – some aspects of “living” shouldn’t be seen by outsiders – but plenty of people swear by the power of the Kinect. However, for those who use it on PC, they may need to change their shopping patterns.

It’s not just gamers who use the Kinect. In fact, gamers generally laugh at it except for the ability to shout out “Xbox On” or “Xbox take a screenshot”. On PC, it serves a far different purpose. Rather than being used for games, many people have taken on the Kinect’s power for other uses. I saw in a promotional video shown by some Microsoft PR a while a back that it’s also used in operating rooms and other medical environments. But those hospitals may need to shop for the technology in a new part of the store.

In a recent post, Michael Fry said that the company has stopped production of the PC-specific hardware to consolidate the Kinect for Windows experience around one sensor. Going forward, the Xbox One Kinect will be the only one Microsoft sells. According to Fry:

Microsoft remains committed to Kinect as a development platform on both Xbox and Windows. So while we are no longer producing the Kinect for Windows v2 sensor, we want to assure developers who are currently using it that our support for the Kinect for Windows v2 sensor remains unchanged and that they can continue to use their sensor.

While this sounds reasonable, the pricing gets a bit odd. The Kinect as a stand alone device costs $150. The adapter to make it work with your PC? Another $50. So for the exorbitant price of just $200, you too can wave your hands in front of you and hope that the camera sees you.

I’m not sure many PC gamers will deign to use the Kinect. However, it’s interesting hardware in other fields of technology. Unfortunately, I’m just not sure why they need to make the adapter so expensive – does it do something that difficult?

Last Updated: April 7, 2015

8 Comments

  1. Greylingad

    April 7, 2015 at 21:44

    Well from a technological field it’s quite amazing, what it does is detect you as a user within an image, it then calculates where your joints are and then where they move. Now, before we go into more detail, remember that this is a machine that has no form of reason (it can’t find the end of our limbs without us telling it how) which means that the developer needs to create a collection of formulas that will help it see all of this (mapping out where the arm starts and ends, which could be quite a challenge when having a look at some of our ‘Murican friends, but so much easier when looking at petite built French ladies, for example), all of this from a single image, now there is an old saying that if you cannot solve a problem with a Fourier transform, it’s unsolvable, well.. I believe I’ve already gone into too much detail, in short, our brains calculate things at a rapid speed, what we are trying to do is allow a camera to do the same using only a fraction of our own computing power… I’m not surprised that they’re giving it up for the PC then…

    Reply

    • Admiral Chief

      April 8, 2015 at 07:26

      [support comment to rant]

      Reply

  2. Aries

    April 7, 2015 at 22:24

    Didn’t know there was one for PC

    Reply

  3. Rock789

    April 8, 2015 at 06:54

    I have no doubt that the Kinect is a great piece of kit… Technologically, it seems superb. But there is simply nothing on the market, with regards to gaming, on the XB1 that requires the Kinect to work that makes me say “Yeah, I gotta have that!”. And it was the same with the original Kinect for the 360.

    I don’t care or need facial or voice recognition… My gaming console is, funnily enough, for gaming. I just feel that all the other nonsense, though impressive, just isn’t worth the extra investment at this point.

    They need to blow me away with something… And that just hasn’t happened.

    Reply

  4. Captain JJ the flash noob

    April 8, 2015 at 07:24

    PC kinect?
    I fail to see why I would want this.

    Reply

    • Matthew Holliday

      April 8, 2015 at 09:33

      i would of bought it just so i could replay ME3 and talk to Garrus and Liara. giving them instructions during a fight seemed legit.

      Reply

  5. Ranting Raptor

    April 8, 2015 at 07:28

    Meh

    Reply

  6. Hammersteyn

    April 8, 2015 at 09:07

    Bah!

    Reply

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