RIP Kinect: 2010-2017(ish)

Discontinued USB adapter is the last nail in the coffin for influential tech.

Kyle Orland – Jan 3, 2018 11:48 am | 85

Always watching. Top to bottom: PlayStation Eye (PS3), Playstation Camera (PS4), Xbox 360 Kinect, Xbox One Kinect. Credit: Kyle Orland

Microsoft is no longer producing the USB Kinect Adapter needed to hook the latest version of the depth-sensing camera's proprietary connection to an Xbox One S, Xbox One X, or PC.

The adapter, which was briefly offered for free to Xbox One S purchasers through last March, was subsequently sold for $40 to users who still wanted to use the camera and voice-activated microphone array on more modern hardware. But Microsoft has now confirmed to Polygon that the adapter is no longer being produced, so Microsoft can "focus attention on launching new, higher fan-requested gaming accessories across Xbox One and Windows 10."

While the adapter can still be purchased second-hand (often at a significant premium), and the Kinect can still be used with original Xbox One hardware (or in Microsoft's Redmond campus store), the move is a clear, final nail in the coffin regarding any continued Kinect support on Microsoft's part.

A roller-coaster ride

It has been a long, slow death for Microsoft's Kinect initiative, which was clearly in trouble once the unit was unbundled from the standard Xbox One package in 2014 (leading almost immediately to heavily improved sales for the Kinect-free console). By the time Microsoft announced it was halting Kinect production a few months ago, both user demand and developer support for the unit had been rapidly congealing for years.

But it's worth remembering how revolutionary the original version of Kinect felt following its explosive launch on the Xbox 360 in late 2010. The prospect of playing games without a controller led the $150 peripheral to become the world's fastest-selling consumer electronics device out of the gate, with 10 million units sold in under six months.

One could see the potential signs of an impending fad in that early success, though, as a relatively low initial attach rate for Kinect software showed users weren't engaging much past the bundled Kinect Adventures and perhaps Harmonix's Dance Central. Our initial assessment of the tech noted problems with lag, resolution, a lack of buttons, and a need for lots of space that would prove key to limiting Kinect's long-term appeal.

By 2012, however, Microsoft was still pushing Kinect-powered titles hard on its E3 stage. It was also pushing the technology on a somewhat reluctant Windows audience, which came to be dominated by hackers more than any commercial development.

<em>Star Wars Kinect</em> was a clever but ultimately unfulfilling use of the Kinect technology.

By the time a new and improved version of Kinect was being tied to the Xbox One in 2013, Microsoft should perhaps have sensed that the technology's moment had passed. But the company instead leaned in heavily on the improved hardware, confident that ubiquitous voice control from anywhere in the room would justify the $100 in additional hardware price over the competition. While that was no doubt true for some, the vast majority of consumers had clearly gotten over Kinect's "gee whiz" factor years ago.

Not that Microsoft seemed entirely aware of the shift in consumer sentiment. The "[Kinect] is really something that we feel, once you take out, lots of people will go, 'Gosh, I really liked that, I got used to it, and I'm going to miss it,'" Xbox Group Program Manager David Dennis told Ars just months before the hardware was unbundled from the Xbox One package. "I think the more consumers get exposed to it, the more they use it, they'll realize what a great, amazing experience it is."

Kinect technology lives on, in a miniaturized form, in Microsoft's Mixed Reality headsets, which use outward-facing depth-sensing cameras to detect head movement and controller positioning. Similar miniaturized technology powers the FaceID system in Apple's iPhone X, as well as Google's recently discontinued Project Tango.

While Kinect may not have ended up as the permanent revolution in the controller-free user interface Microsoft predicted, its impact on the consumer electronics industry is still being felt today. As Microsoft heads into its first full Kinect-free year this decade, it seems like as good of an excuse as any to drag out an old Xbox 360 and indulge in one more game of Dance Central to remember it by.