Kinect, Microsoft’s defunct Xbox camera, lives on in surprising ways
Kinect for Xbox 360 remains the fastest-selling gaming peripheral ever
🙌 Kinect is still alive today, but not for gaming
🤔 The Xbox camera has been repurposed in several interesting ways since it was discontinued
📷 For example, it powers a New York Hall of Science exhibit called Connected Worlds
📈 Kinect is still the fastest-selling gaming peripheral of all time
Remember Kinect? It turns out Microsoft’s body-tracking camera that sold one million units in 10 days is still alive and well – but not how you might think.
Microsoft ended the Kinect line in 2017 and its successor in 2023 as it failed to live up to its promise of revolutionizing gaming. But even though people largely look back on the Xbox 360 and Xbox One cameras with disdain, they’re still being used in other interesting ways.
As highlighted by The Guardian, people have repurposed the camera for ghost hunting, interactive art, robotics, and even pornography.
Theo Watson, co-founder of Design I/O, a creative studio specializing in interactive installations, relies on Kinect’s depth-sensing cameras.
“When the Kinect came out, it really was like a dream situation,” Watson recalls. “We probably have 10+ installations around the world that have Kinects tracking people right now … The gaming use of the Kinect was a blip.”
Watson says that Microsoft’s camera opened up a new world of possibilities for many, as Kinect crammed the same sort of tech from a $6,000 camera into a device that cost $150.
You can experience Kinect today, as it lives on in the New York Hall of Science as part of the Connected Worlds exhibition, something which Watson notes wouldn’t be possible without Microsoft’s camera.
“Half the projects on our website wouldn’t exist without the Kinect,” Watson said. “If we had this camera for another decade, we would still not run out of things to do with it.”
Kinect has appeared in many strange locations since its demise. The camera was spotted guarding the Korean border and at Newark Airport for surveillance.
There’s no doubt Kinect was a flash in the pan for Microsoft, and largely capitalized on the motion-controlled frenzy that propelled the Wii to over 100 million units sold. However, it still brought some truly future-thinking tech to millions, including voice and gesture controls.
While it may have failed as a gaming device, it’s nice to see Kinect still lives on in another form.
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Adam Vjestica is The Shortcut’s Senior Editor. Formerly TechRadar’s Gaming Hardware Editor, Adam has also worked at Nintendo of Europe as a Content Marketing Editor, where he helped launch the Nintendo Switch. Follow him on X @ItsMrProducts.
