Microsoft did not talk about its motion-sensing Xbox peripheral Kinect during the company’s E3 briefing this week or at all during the show itself. Some fans might be wondering how committed Microsoft is to the technology considering it didn’t take any time to talk about it at the year’s biggest gaming show.
But now, Xbox executive Aaron Greenberg has spoken out to assure fans that Kinect is here to stay.
“We are absolutely continuing to support Kinect,” Greenberg told GameSpot this week at E3.
He went on to say that Microsoft is “innovating with Kinect in a different way,” pointing out that there are features included with the new Xbox One user interface that will leverage Kinect. One of these is Cortana, Microsoft’s Siri-like digital assistant, that will be available on Xbox One sometime in the future.
“So we’re continuing to support Kinect where it makes sense,” Greenberg added.
When the Xbox One launched in November 2013, all Xbox One bundles came with Kinect. But this changed a year later, when Microsoft released a Kinect-free bundle and offered the camera as an optional add-on. Greenberg stressed that consumers having a choice is an important part of the overall Xbox One strategy.
“We really want Kinect to be a choice for customers. For me, I love it; I turn my Xbox One with Kinect; I use it for entertainment; I use it to do screenshots and all that,” he said. “I like to be able to have my hands on the controller and use voice commands. But, frankly, a lot of people also want a better value and don’t want to have to pay for it. So we’re not going to force people to do that. We give people the choice.”
You can watch our full interview with Greenberg below.
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