Microsoft launched its original Kinect depth-sensing gadget to a skeptic crowd and now, roughly four years later, it is ready to phase it out.
The original Kinect helped pioneer the technology for depth-sensing cameras, but Microsoft is now getting ready to phase out the gadget in 2015. The sensor launched as a means to make Microsoft's gaming console more attractive and boost Xbox 360 sales, but it stirred mixed reactions from the very beginning. The sensor proved to be quite controversial, but eventually found its place within the DIY hacking community, as well as various companies who used it for motion tracking, facial recognition, and other purposes.
Those who still rely on the original Kinect v1, however, might want to stock up while they still can, as Microsoft will not make any more units once current supply runs out.
"In October, we shipped the public release of the Kinect for Windows v2 sensor and its software development kit (SDK 2.0). The availability of the v2 sensor and SDK 2.0 means that we will be phasing out the sale of the original Kinect for Windows sensor in 2015," Microsoft announced in a company blog post on Tuesday, Dec. 30.
"The move to v2 marks the next stage in our journey toward more natural human computing. The new sensor provides a host of new and improved features, including enhanced body tracking, greater depth fidelity, full 1080p high-definition video, new active infrared capabilities, and an expanded field of view. Likewise, SDK 2.0 offers scores of updates and enhancements, not the least of which is the ability to create and publish Kinect-enabled apps in the Windows Store. At the same time that we publicly released the v2 sensor and its SDK, we also announced the availability of the Kinect Adapter for Windows, which lets developers create Kinect for Windows applications using a Kinect for Xbox One sensor. The response of the developer community to Kinect v2 has been tremendous: Every day we are seeing amazing apps built on the capabilities of the new sensor and SDK, and since we released a public beta of SDK 2.0 in July, the community has been telling us that porting their original solutions over to v2 is smoother and faster than expected."
At the same time, while the new Kinect v2 initially came as a non-optional part of Microsoft's Xbox One gaming console, many users were reluctant to pay for it because they didn't need it. Microsoft finally decided to offer an Xbox One version without Kinect bundled in, and this proved to be a successful strategy. Xbox One sales have improved recently, since Kinect is no longer mandatory, and Microsoft is no longer so far behind Sony and its PlayStation 4. The demise of the original Kinect was only a matter of time, and the company has now offered a timeframe.
