Kinect's demise happened a while back and is news to no one at this point. The game utility never panned out; the consumer deemed it not worth the additional cost, and it was dead in the water from there. However, as one of the few who actually has owned an Xbox One with Kinect since day one, I can offer a somewhat unique perspective on the actual usefulness of Kinect. For me, the appeal was always voice commands. This functionality didn't really work consistently at launch, and that became an internet joke of sorts. Fairly (to a degree) but arguably too much so and for too long, as the idea of these commands not working at all became the permanent perception. Except Kinect DID improve on the voice recognition over time. By about mid-2014, in my experience, Kinect was damn near flawless in terms of voice recognition. Voice-navigating between everything was easy, to the point that even my wife was using it and finding it to be handy. Unfortunately, outside of those who actually owned it, no one really knew or cared to know that launch Kinect was far inferior to what it became a few short months later.

It was too little, too late at that point, though. Around the same time Kinect was actually hitting its stride in terms of the wonkiness being ironed out, the Xbox One was in the middle of a PR nightmare as people were piling on the console left and right. The media and the internet love a good opportunity to grab the pitchforks, and boy, did they. People went apeshit about any game that was sub-1080p (even though the real-world visual difference proved to be nominal at best), everyone was mocking the low sales numbers for the console, and the collective gleefully proclaimed the console's impending demise (and may well have been right if changes hadn't been made). So MS bit the bullet and announced the Kinect-less Xbox One, again to much mockery because the consumer/internet was in a way proven "right" for not buying the Kinect version and happily gloated about it. For those who actually owned a Kinect, this wasn't quite such a joyous occasion, but it was a necessary and understandable move for MS to make.

Shortly afterwards in late 2014 when Kinect-less Xbox Ones were making their way into homes, MS unlocked the 7th CPU core to essentially re-route resources previously dedicated to Kinect towards game performance to try and quiet the "OMG the Xbox One version of this game is only 972p, LOLZ" crowd. I'm not sure that I've really noticed the difference there, but the Kinect certainly became appreciably less effective. This was disappointing, but I didn't really expect MS to cater to a small contingent on a technology that was being phased out, either. The Xbox One found its footing a bit afterwards, though it's still fighting an uphill battle from the rough start. Recently, the new UI was released. Now, I don't have any proof that this actually happened, but based on real-world results, I'm fairly certain that what few resources in the console were still being dedicated to supporting Kinect mostly went into supporting the new UI. Back in 2014, Kinect's performance took a serious hit, but in my experience, the UI update seems to have been the real deathblow.

The Kinect's responsiveness feels worse now than it was at launch. I wish I'd taken the time to actually test it out each month and write down the results so I'd have something more concrete, but it sure seems like the Kinect's ability to recognize voice commands has been a bell curve. Believe it or not, there was a time it actually worked pretty damn well. Sadly, that time has passed. In Kinect's stead, we're supposedly getting marginally better games and have gotten a better UI as the market demanded. Ironically enough, maybe the Kinect's biggest plus looking back on it now was in easing navigation on the previous UI, as I was able to voice-bypass some of the complaints others had. Now that the Xbox One has a slicker, mostly effective UI to obsolete the Kinect a bit more on the practical side, perhaps it's fitting in a way that this would be what obsoletes the Kinect on the technical side if they indeed did commit more resources away from the Kinect as I suspect.

Unsurprisingly, Microsoft has distanced themselves from Kinect's failure, but it's almost to a comical degree now. You can barely find evidence Kinect ever existed on the xbox.com page. You have to go into the page that lists the console bundles, and at the very bottom right of the page they're still selling a Kinect Xbox. (Frankly, they probably shouldn't even be selling that at this point.) There's also small things you notice elsewhere. The Xbox gift cards used to have a QR code you could scan with the Kinect to spare you from typing in those awful codes (stop using 8s and Bs in those, goddamnit), but they don't even bother to put those on there anymore. So, yeah, it's pretty much useless now. Spare me the har har jokes about how it always was. I don't regret buying it even now, because it actually did work for a while and it was a neat idea, but it just didn't pan out. If nothing else, at least Kinect was an interesting business/marketing/technical case study.

I wonder if they'll revisit some of the more useful functions of the kinect in more limited ways. Voice commands through just a microphone seems like a perfectly sensible thing to explore.

Well, at least Rare won't be forced back into making Kinect games.

I hope so, but I'm not holding my breath. In 20/20 hindsight, limiting it to voice commands is the route they probably should have gone in the first place. I can't think the microphone portion of it was the expensive part, and they probably could have just included that within the Xbox One itself. Besides, the motion/camera stuff (aside from Skype) never worked well. The "control with gestures" feature only seemed to "work" when you put your foot up on the coffee table or took a drink from a glass and weren't trying to use it, but when you gesticulated wildly at it to try and use it, nothing. D4 is probably the only game that came close to capitalizing on the motion in meaningful ways. The camera was a bust, but I think there was always value to be had in the microphone. However, even that is limited in functionality these days after they put much of the Kinect resources towards other ends. Perhaps they could route the remaining camera resources to the microphone to maybe make the voice command functionality return to what it once was, but I just don't see Microsoft spending much time on any aspect of the Kinect going forward.

My Xbox is my steaming hub for Plex and Netflix, and that's all because of the voice commands through Kinect. I have about six boxes hooked up to the TV that could play Netflix (slightly fewer that support Plex), but having access to voice commands keeps me coming back to the Xbox. I've played one game with Kinect (Fantasia) since launch, and I still think it was worth the extra $100 for the convenience of voice commands alone.

If they had made decent games for the thing, given it far more general applications of use with the console, and even embraced the modding community harder, the Kinect would be the single greatest piece of technology to come to consoles ever.

I kind of hate that people shunned the fuck out of the thing. It's such a cool device.

It's kind of crazy how the most useful thing about the Xbox One Kinect is / was voice commands, which the PS4 has been able to do since launch. You can pull up any game you've ever played in your PS4 library by using a simple voice command.

Also...

I was a very satisfied MS customer last generation, but moved to PS4 due to consumer ownership rights and mandatory Kinect. The less than stellar party system and dashboard issues at launch further cemented my decision. Just goes to show you, if you're already in first place, the worst thing you can do is change what customers already love about your product.

At the start of the generation, I would have warned people away from the Xbox One. These days, I'd just say go with whatever system your friends own. The consoles are pretty similar these days, and good on MS for having the sense to remove their heels from the ground. But just as I never owned a PS3 last generation--599 US Dollars--Microsoft has lost me for this generation.

I wish they just delivered compelling software for it and made it non crazy intrusive privacy wise instead of $hitcanning it.

I thought the potential in the fitness space for workouts and stuff could have been awesome.

@notnert427: I largely agree with your thoughts. I thought that the Kinect showed real potential back in 2014, but the functionality has slowly been stripped away. Now, with the new UI, some of the voice controls are barely usable anymore.

I still have not played a game with my Kinect outside of Xbox Fitness, which actually works and is pretty effective.

I bought the bundle even when I had the option not to. I didn't want to feel like I was missing something if they ever released a compelling game for it. I don't think I've played a single game that required it, but it's definitely lent itself to the way I use that system. Pretty much any basic command I use the voice command exclusively for. It's also great for pausing movies or videos when I've been watching long enough for the controller to go to sleep.

No regrets here, but I understand its worth is pretty limited.

So that's why the performance of my Kinect has gone off a cliff recently. I even re-ran the Kinect calibration tool thinking that would help. It didn't, and now I know why. That's a real shame because it was actually really great for voice commands.

Pour one out for the Kinect then, I guess.

I miss those QR codes. So convenient, when on screen keyboards are the exact opposite. Now I just use the website because even finding the place to enter a code on the console is a massive pain in the ass.

Again, that's just my theory, but it certainly adds up. Once the new UI hit, voice commands became far less successful in my experience. That, in combination with the fact that a UI that's both faster and fancier has to be drawing that performance from somewhere, leads me to believe they dipped from the Kinect well again as they did in late 2014. Honestly, it's what I would do in their shoes at this point as well, but it's a shame. Gotta give the consumer what they ask for.