Here's something interesting we came across this week - Ubisoft has been talking about an alternative to the Xbox Kinect (a device that was discontinued in the Xbox One era), with the catch being that it's specifically for Just Dance.
They call this "Camera Controller mode", and it works pretty much the same way as the Xbox Kinect did, but only requires your smartphone. It's been an idea at Ubisoft since 2021, and has been available in beta form for quite some time (it worked in Just Dance 2025, for example), but it's only now getting a fully-fledged release in Just Dance 2026.
To mark its release, multiple members of the Just Dance team have been discussing the feature with Xbox Wire recently, explaining that it was created due to Xbox Kinect being "by far the preferred setup" for Just Dance in the past:
"Just Dance has a competitive legacy on Kinect, which was by far the preferred setup for our core community because of the freedom it provided. […] This way of playing aligns perfectly with our core gameplay – dance itself. It encourages learning the art of dance beyond the game."
"Kinect had limitations related to game environment that made scoring imprecise. These issues are no longer relevant with our new in-house technology. It gives back to our community their favorite mode of play – only now, improved!"
The team went into detail about how difficult it was to develop this "true ‘live Kinect’ experience" for Just Dance while also continuing to produce new choreographies, but ultimately it seems to have been a success!
“It’s the first time we’ve integrated a Machine Learning algorithm at the heart of the game. […] It was crucial to always refer back to the game context when designing the feature. […] We even built our own dance motion database with help from volunteers within the Just Dance production team, to train a model specific to the game.”
"The enthusiasm from players motivates us to capitalize on this feature and develop more innovations."
So, if you want to go and play Just Dance 2026 with an Xbox Kinect-like experience, it's just launched this week on the Xbox Store for $44.99 / $49.99. And, considering they've worked so hard to make this smartphone feature a reality, we're just a little bit hopeful that it could extend to more Ubisoft games in the future. Hey, you never know!