If there was one advantage that Sony’s PlayStation 4 had over the Microsoft Xbox One, it is that the former was priced $100 cheaper. The Xbox One was priced higher due to the fact that it came with a Kinect sensor bundled with the console which it seems that most gamers did not necessary want.Microsoft then reduced the price of the console to $399 and unbundled the Kinect from the console, and recently the company has been pushing out more offerings that do not include the Kinect, leading to some wondering about the future of the sensor and whether or not Microsoft had abandoned development of it.
As it turns out that is not the case. In an interview with Edge, Microsoft’s Phil Spencer reassured gamers that the Kinect was still alive and well and that Microsoft is still working on creating new features and expanding its functionality. “It’s not abandoned. We just developed Upload Studio 2.0, which has green screening that you can do with Kinect. We’ll continue to build functionality to make it a valuable part of the ecosystem.”
At the same time, Spencer admits that unbundling the Kinect was a good idea as it led to an increase in console sales over the holiday period. “That said, price point’s really important for the console – we saw that over the holidays in the UK and US, where we did well when we dropped the price, which was great. And I want to make sure consumers have choice on how much they value the functionality of Kinect when they buy a console.”