Microsoft ends Kinect: the final story of a peripheral with a life as ephemeral as its successes

In full swing of the market with the Nintendo Wii, the other two large companies in the segment wanted to respond in their own way but taking as a reference those of Kyoto. Sony did it with the PlayStation Move and Microsoft tried to repeat its success with the Kinect.

It was the year 2010 and Microsoft launched the Kinect, an accessory for the Xbox 360 that allowed the user to interact with the console thanks to the use of gestures and voice commands that the Kinect was responsible for capturing. In principle, a great development that later even saw its own version arrive for the Xbox One that raised sparks at its launch.And as they say in football, it's about a great promise that in the end didn't go beyond that

And it is that after seven years on the market, almost all spent with more pain than glory, the end of Kinect can almost be confirmed, an end that its creator, Alex Kipman, would have confirmed when announcing the cessation of production of the device.

With total sales since its inception of 35 million units, developers have never been lured by the possibilities that lie ahead the paper offered Kinect. An idea that also did not attract the public, much less when he was initially forced to buy it if he wanted to own an Xbox One.

On Xbox One it didn't start off on the right foot

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And that from the beginning they made us long teeth with some more than attractive games such as Ryse: Son of Rome that at E3 2011 made us see significantly improved control with Kinect.In the end, this title did not use Kinect but we did see casual-style games similar to those seen on Wii while other proposals were nothing more than disappointing or merely anecdotal ( Kinect listened to our voice in FIFA and lectured us about any profanity)."

A bad launch policy that made competing with the PS4 cost more than 100 euros/dollars over the price of the Sony console. The next step, acknowledging its mistake, was taken by Microsoft itself by removing the connection every 24 hours from Xbox One and modifying its DRM policy

And that they managed to sell up to 35 million units that in the end were not very useful

However, Kinect has had experimental uses outside of the commercial circuit and thus we have seen how it has helped with its use within the medical field or as it allowed to collaborate with the translation in sign language thanks to the ability to recognize gestures.

An accessory that hid and hides great potential that has been damaged by the arrival of technologies based on Mixed Reality in the They have high hopes for Microsoft, as demonstrated by the development of the Microsoft Mixed Reality project.

However, from Microsoft they have known how to take advantage of Kinect or at least the potential that it hid and in fact HoloLens manages to detect depth thanks in part to the base that offered in Kinect just as many Windows Hello cameras use Kinect's people recognition.

So if you want a Kinect you can only do with one unit as long as Microsoft and distributors have _stock_ of units. Once sold out in stores, they will no longer hit shelves, although Microsoft does say that will continue to offer support in the form of updates

What does seem certain is that from Microsoft they no longer want to know anything about Kinect and have decided to say goodbye to this accessory by giving it a early retirement letter Successes are useless (it was the best-selling consumer device in 2011) or the potential it holds if it has not caught on among users, partly due to the scant support of the company. Rest in peace Kinect.

Source | Fast Co Design