Microsoft Fully Discontinues the Kinect

Developers got creative with the hardware and that seen the rise of Kinect Hacks, communities sharing their innovation uses of the technology. This large-scale production helped Microsoft eventually sell the console to all parts of the world. The AR headset that uses a Kinect sensor. This led to production of gaming titles mostly from Microsoft themselves such as Kinect Sports, Kinect Adventures, Kinectimals and my personal favourite Dance Central.

All Xbox fans are invited to visit Microsoft Store locations across the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico and Sydney to celebrate the launch with giveaways, gameplay and more.

Fast Company spoke to Microsoft about officially ending Kinect production confirming that the peripheral managed to sell around 35 million units since debuting back in 2010.

Microsoft did try to make Kinect a mainstream product again and introduced an improved version with the launch of Xbox One; however, the steep pricing of the overall package gave consumers enough reasons to buy the competitor’s Sony PS4.

One of Microsoft’s blunders at the start of the eighth console generation was to bundle a Kinect with every Xbox One.

People just didn’t care much about Microsoft’s original vision for the Kinect, which received bad publicity when Ad Age reported comments from a senior Microsoft executive talking about Kinect’s ability to gather user data and serve them targeted ads. This gets awfully clumsy without Kinect. However, like many of Microsoft’s good ideas, the company has been unable to maintain its traction in the market and, like Windows 10 Mobile, it has gone the way of the Dodo.

Critics of the Kinect will not miss the Xbox accessory, as newer technologies have since eclipsed it. That investment will finally pay off (or not) with the iPhone X. Inside the phone’s notch is the Face ID system, a depth-sensing infrared camera that relies on Kinect-like algorithms to map faces.