Microsoft Discontinues Kinect Adapter, Officially Marking The End of Don Mattrick's Kinect Era

A couple months ago it was revealed that Microsoft would stop production on the Xbox One Kinect. Well, now it looks like the new Xbox leaders are making sure we don’t remember the ‘Don Mattrick Era’. Microsoft has ended production of the Kinect Adapter, the USB accessory that is required to connect the Xbox One Kinect sensor to an Xbox One S, Xbox One X or Windows device, the company confirmed to Polygon today.
“After careful consideration, we decided to stop manufacturing the Xbox Kinect Adapter to focus attention on launching new, higher fan-requested gaming accessories across Xbox One and Windows 10,” a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement to Polygon. As for any plans to bring back the item in the future, the representative declined to discuss Microsoft’s product roadmap, but said the adapter “will no longer be available.”

This appears to mark the end of the Kinect on Xbox. It was evident in 2016 when Microsoft launched the Xbox One S without the proprietary port necessary to hook up the Kinect directly to the console. The voice-enabled camera peripheral can be plugged into a USB port on a PC, Xbox One S or Xbox One X, but only via the Kinect Adapter.

The Xbox One dashboard hasn’t supported Kinect-based gesture controls since November 2015.

Voice navigation and Cortana functionality do not require Kinect; except for “hey Cortana, Xbox on,” all commands will work with a simple headset microphone.

This is sad news indeed for fans who enjoyed the kinect.