Microsoft Kills Production Of The Kinect

A sad day for some as Microsoft finally kills production of its Kinect camera for the Xbox One.

It has been a rough road for the Kinect, the motion camera which launched in 2010 for the Xbox 360 initially sold by the bucket load. Microsoft placed its new device as a direct competitor to the Nintendo Wii after Nintendo captured a whole new gaming market thanks to the Wii's simple, but fun motion control system.

Although the Kinect for the 360 achieved moderate success, by the end of the 360 life the motion control fad had kind of died down and developers were spending less and less time implementing Kinect ideas and voice controls into their games. 

This lack of support from developers didn't seem to deter Microsoft one bit, when the Xbox One launched it would do so with a new and improved Kinect camera bundled with every console. This drove the price of the system up and was just one of an uncountable number of mistakes that Microsoft made launching the Xbox One.

The Xbox One's UI was initially designed to be used with the Kinect's voice commands but most people, myself included, hardly ever switched the thing on. This made navigating the menus a clunky, horrible, disjointed nightmare. To this day, Microsoft are still trying to fix the systems UI.

I think it's fair to say that most people disliked the new version of the Kinect, not because it was bad but because it was forced on them at the start. Giving the choice, most folk would of decided to not buy the Kinect if it meant they could of had an Xbox One for a €100 less 

It was no surprise then that after only a few short months on sale, Microsoft decided to ditch the Kinect and sell the Xbox One by itself. At this stage the damage had already been done though, the PS4 was killing the Xbox One at retail thanks to it been €100 cheaper and slightly more powerful to boot.

And now we reach the endgame for Kinect, it has had a relatively short life but not one without purpose. You see, as Microsoft kills production of its ill-fated camera, the technology and research that went into bringing it to market is at the core of what the big M are doing next, their VR/AR headset, HoloLens. New technologies have always been built on the foundations of what went before it

What do you think folks, have you enjoyed your experiences with Kinect on the Xbox One or do you think that Microsoft should of let the technology die with th Xbox 360? please feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments below. 

Image From wikipedia.org