Phil Spencer Explains Why The Kinect Was An Important Step For Xbox

For me kinect was Microsofts way of creating family oriented software and should definitely bring it back, would much prefer a newer kinect over VR as well

It’s a bit sad that Microsoft’s old stance of forcing Kinect was what actually killed Kinect.

I feel had they just offered is and an optional add on from the get go, it would not had not dragged down the console and, by proxy, become no longer viable. It’s obviously not the only Xbox one launch stumble, but would had been interesting to still have Kinect today as an option.

Kinect is part of the reason for Rare’s mass exodus so I’ll always feel a bit bitter towards that tbh.

Actually I still have fun with our kids and a kinect connected to our 360. I think what killed the idea was it's over devotion to "controller free" gaming. If they added controllers like they have with VR headsets now (or even a regular xBox controller) I think they wouldn't have limited developers so much and we would have had (and possibly still have) a wider variety of gameplay styled games.

First sentence, "Some Xbox fans might look back on the days of the Kinect in a negative light"

Yes, yes I do.

I hated the thing and the games that were with it. Still don't really know why, I used to have loads of fun with the Wii.

Well done Microsoft you useless numb nuts.
Currently no pre download for Xbox console Halo campaign, said to be roughly about 50gb ish.
Biggest release of the year and you couldn’t get that right Microsoft.
At this rate I won’t be playing until about Friday maybe Saturday.
I know it’s a silly thing moaning, but this should have been dealt with better with your trillions of dollars.

I always felt like the Kinect got too much hate, but I think the way they focused on it in the early Xbox One days made everyone resentful of it.

@Dezzy70 wrong article? 😂

@UltimateOtaku91
I know but I found out about 10 minutes before the thread came up on here and just had to say something 😆

Loved the kinect. It arrived at the perfect time where I was working and living with mates and it felt like I was back in college playing boxing and dance games. Great fun.

I’m grateful for the Kinect. I had fun with a lot of my friends/ dorm neighbors in college, drunk playing Dance Central and Dance Central 2

I always thought of Kinect as Dons way of trying to copy Nintendo and cash in on their market. That was before Sony invented Jim Ryan that was just so much better a Nintendo clone.

@Tharsman Forcing Kinect wasn't the issue.

Forcing Kinect with a $100 premium was.

It happened at a time where companies though they could sell their consoles at a profit.

Spoilers, it doesn't work that way. Hardware is a gateway to profits from the licensing fees. And they learned the hard way.

I actually loved the Kinect.

I still remember getting the first one from testing it through MSDN. They sent us all a finalized unit with a bunch of prerelease software we got to use over time. It ultimately culminated in them letting us Keep the Kinect as we. As getting full versions of some games including Halo Reach. One of my favorite things was the scanning mechanic in Halo CE Anniversary that was cut from MCC.

Then when the new Kinect with the one came around, I was blown away by thing like recording through voice and head tracking in games like Battlefield 4. I do miss the device.

I upgraded my Xbox360 'Elite' to an Xbox 360 Slim with Kinect and also bought my XB1 at launch so had Kinect 2.0. Being disabled, I really didn't benefit as much from Motion controls, but my kids much preferred Kinect for Dance/Fitness party games - something they used the Wii for. The fact that Kinect tracked 'body' position was far superior to tracking just 2 points, where the controllers were.

It was clunky/laggy and using voice commands wasn't 'common place' (although now it seems most have some voice activated devices now - Alexa, Google...) and felt odd - although 'Xbox On' was cool...

Its obviously been used by many people in non-gaming applications - from being the 'head' of a robot or in a grocery warehouse. The technology was impressive for its time and Kinect 3.0 could be much more 'impressive'.

I don't necessary think that Kinect was the issue at launch - I think the way it was 'forced' on people, adding to that price tag that pushed XB1 above PS4 on Price, the always online and paranoia of having a camera and microphone in their house and of course then felt 'lied' to when MS opted to make it optional after insisting it was essential. I feel it was the 'scapegoat' for that disastrous launch and the only way MS could try and save the Gen was to drop that, thus dropping the price below PS4 and free up a bit more performance to try and close the 'power' gap.