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Microsoft Stops Making The Kinect
The Kinect accessory has already been a punchline, but now it's officially dead. Creator Alex Kipman has told Co.Design in an interview that Microsoft is not making more of the device when retailers sell off any remaining stock.
The device, introduced in 2010, lived through both the Xbox 360 and Xbox One eras, but never caught on with developers nor gamers despite the fact that an updated version of the sensor initially came with the Xbox One.
Perhaps the Kinect's most significant contribution was its utilization in non-gaming fields. Appropriately, versions of the tech are found in Microsoft's Hololens, and its core concepts of voice, face, and body recognition continue to be important.
[Source: Co.Design]
Our Take
The Kinect's tech is nice and all, but its failure is emblematic of the larger problem that it's almost impossible to make consumers care about things they don't actually care about, whether that's Kinect when they'd rather have a fully powered gaming system, or VR, or whatever the next shiny piece of tech we're told is a "must have."
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