Kinect will come to PCs, says Microsoft CEO

By Jeffrey Van Camp January 8, 2011

microsoft-bbc-steve-ballmer-on-kinect-for-pc — Image used with permission by copyright holder

With all of the Xbox Kinect modding going on and Microsoft’s new menu-gesture updates to Kinect for Xbox, we’ve been wondering if Microsoft has any plans to open the Kinect motion camera up to PCs and other devices. Until now, the answer has been “no comment.” For the last two days, I’ve been asking Microsoft executives and employees at CES if they knew anything about this and the answer has always been, that it sounds like a cool idea but there are no plans at this time. Well, the BBC finally got a confirmation from the big man himself, CEO Steve Ballmer.

When asked by the BBC if the company has any plans to bring Kinect to PCs, Ballmer said it will happen, in time. “We’ll support that in a formal way at the right time and when we have an announcement to make, we’ll make it.”

Ballmer also spoke a bit about where Kinect is already heading: “Well we certainly started it out with Xbox, very focused in on gaming and we’re the number one game console in a lot of countries and at this stage we’re very happy about that. We’re trying to do two major things though: we’re trying to move beyond gaming to include the world of socialization, movies, TV, music, and we’re trying to make the whole experience accessible to everybody in the family, not just the traditional gamer.”

Do you want to make motion gestures or speak to play games and navigate menus on your PC or other products? Microsoft is certainly trying something new with Kinect. It will be interesting how they capitalize on the buzz from here.

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Jeffrey Van Camp

Former Digital Trends Contributor

As DT's Deputy Editor, Jeff helps oversee editorial operations at Digital Trends. Previously, he ran the site's…

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