Skip to main content

The new Kinect will eventually watch you from a PC

xbox-one-event-sensor-frontThe Xbox One‘s next-gen Kinect sensor, referred to so far only as the new Kinect, will eventually arrive on PC, Microsoft executives confirmed. Microsoft corporate vice president of interactive entertainment business Ben Kilgore told Polygon that the new Kinect will hit PC “at some point down the line,” and Kinect program manager Scott Evans said much the same to Shacknews.

At the moment details are nonexistent – not surprising since the new Kinect has been in the public’s eye for just over a day at this point – but Evans said more information will arrive “soon.”

Recommended Videos

The next-gen Kinect will be be included with every Xbox One bundle, guaranteeing its entry into millions of homes (assuming the Xbox One is a success, of course). It features a 1080p camera with a wider viewing angle than its predecessor, facial recognition, heartbeat sensing, night vision, and more new features. Most importantly though, it allows for a degree of precision not possible on the previous generation.  

Following its release for the Xbox 360 in 2010, the original Kinect sensor was released for Windows PC in 2012 and has proved useful in a number of unusual settings, such as hospitals. The 360 and PC versions have gone on to sell more than 24 million units worldwide.

Michael Rougeau
Former Contributor
Mike Rougeau is a journalist and writer who lives in Los Angeles with his girlfriend and two dogs. He specializes in video…
The Xbox Series X is $50 off at Walmart, but you need to hurry
A black Xbox Series X and controller against a black background.

Gamers who are having trouble finding Xbox Series X and Series S deals, we're here to help you out. We've tracked down this offer from Walmart -- a $50 discount on the Xbox Series X, which slashes its price from $498 to $448. Offers for Microsoft's latest-generation video game console don't usually last long though, and we don't think this bargain will be an exception. If want to pocket the savings, the only way to make sure of that is to proceed with your purchase right now.

Why you should buy the Xbox Series X
The Microsoft Xbox Series X is an extremely powerful video game console with features that include 120 frames per second, HDR, 12 teraflops of processing power, and 1TB SSD. Our Xbox Series X versus PlayStation 5 comparison gives the PS5 the overwhelming win when it comes to exclusives, but the Xbox Series X has access to all of the popular third-party games. If you subscribe to the Xbox Game Pass, you'll also be able to play excellent first-party titles for free as long as you maintain your monthly membership.

Read more
Xbox is finally letting you cloud stream games you own, with some limits
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty's new character. She's in a security uniform leaning against a railing with a fiery cityscape in the background.

Years after Xbox promised that users could stream games they own through the cloud, the company is finally launching that functionality, albeit with some restrictions.

Starting Wednesday, Game Pass Ultimate subscribers will be able to use Xbox Cloud Gaming to stream games they already own, even if they're not in the Game Pass catalog. However, they can only stream from a list of 50 supported games right now. You can view the full list on Xbox's website, but it's a good mix of titles, ranging from AAA releases like Cyberpunk 2077, Star Wars Outlaws, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 to recent indies like Animal Well, Fear the Spotlight, and Dredge. This applies to any version of the game you own, like if you have Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition.

Read more
Xbox Game Pass is getting tons of new games following Black Ops 6 success
A cockpit view in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024.

We know a lot of you are playing Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 on Xbox right now, but the company just announced some games coming to Xbox Game Pass -- specifically the Game Pass Standard tier -- in the first half of November.

The biggest game coming to the service (and we mean that literally) is Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. Xbox and developers Asobo Studio previously reported that it will have a smaller install size than its predecessor -- 127GB versus 157GB -- but it'll also require 64GB of RAM. All of this is to help stream immense detail to the player as they fly around the world. Asobo says helped it to increase "the detail of its virtual environment by a factor of 4,000." Alongside the hyperrealistic graphics is a new career mode where you go through training and missions to become a pilot and a challenge mode where you compete against other pilots. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is coming to Game Pass at launch on November 19.

Read more