After all, the Kinect is no longer produced! Anyone who says so is of course right. However, a special version has survived, whose life is about to end.
The consumer version, that is, the one that we could plug into the Xbox to jump and wave our arms in front of the TV, first lost support, and then it was discontinued. The version being disabled at this time is the Azure Kinect Developer Kit, which was introduced in 2019 .
In 2017, Microsoft announced that it was stopping all production of its flagship motion control device, the Kinect , thus ending its seven-year lifespan. A year later, Microsoft announced that it would also discontinue the Xbox Kinect Adapter, a USB accessory that allowed Kinect owners to connect the sensor to an Xbox One S, Xbox One X, or Windows PC.
However, in 2019, there was a new version of the Kinect sensor in the form of the Azure Kinect Developer Kit, a $399 desktop peripheral powered by the Azure cloud for use in enterprises and AI developers.
Now, Microsoft has announced that it has decided to end production of the Azure Kinect Developer Kit. The device equipped with a 12-megapixel camera, depth sensor and seven microphones, however, has not been completely written into the history books.
Microsoft finally ends production of the Kinect
Microsoft has stated that the technology will continue to be available through the partner ecosystem , so anyone who might use it for such purposes should be able to find similar offerings sold by third-party partners. The Windows developer recommends Orbbec's Femto Bolt, which uses the same depth camera module, as an alternative to Azure Kinect.
Other Azure Kinect developer kits can be purchased until the end of October or while supplies last. Existing users can continue to use them "without disruption" and the Azure Kinect Developer Kit SDK will continue to be available for download.
Upon its initial release for the Xbox 360 in November 2010, the Kinect sold approximately 35 million units over its lifetime . Microsoft tried to rekindle interest by pairing it with the Xbox One after its 2013 launch , but this drove up the price of the console. The plan seemed to backfire and the packages soon disappeared.
