Microsoft Finally Finished Making the Kinect (For Real This Time)

It finally happened. Microsoft has completely ended production of Kinect devices. And no, you didn’t find an article from 2014. Yes, it’s 2023 and Microsoft, in case you didn’t know, is still trying to get the Kinect to work, but not in the gaming business. Well, today Microsoft just threw up the towel.

An advanced motion-sensing camera, the Kinect was first introduced to the Xbox 360 in 2010. While the technology was fairly nifty, the Kinect has arguably struggled to attract many gamers and has earned a reputation for enticing different scoop games like Myth: The Journey. In 2013, Microsoft revealed that the Kinect would ship with every Xbox One. While the new Kinect unit was impressive from a technical standpoint, it once again failed to get a foothold with almost anyone. Microsoft later stopped bundling the Kinect with the Xbox One, and the device transitioned to Microsoft’s mixed reality and enterprise solutions. keeping the Kinect name, Microsoft introduced the Azure Kinect Developer Kit in 2019 For those looking to apply depth sensing technology in different work environments. Today, this chapter in Kenneth’s life is coming to an end.

“As the needs of our customers and partners evolve, we regularly update our products to better support them.” Microsoft blog The announcement of the death of the Azure Kinect Developer Kit opens.

But even though the Azure Kinect Developer Kit is now out of production, it looks like the technology will live on. Microsoft hailed Orbbec’s new Femto Bolt, a device very similar to the Azure Kinect DK, as providing the necessary hardware for those still interested in working with 3D depth camera technology. Through a dedicated software path, developers will be able to use Azure Kinect DK on Femto Bolt. Meanwhile, Microsoft has stated that it plans to continue providing the software tools needed to work with Azure Kinect DKs that are still out in the wild.