With the announcement that Microsoft is now releasing the Xbox One console sans-Kinect, many saw it as both an announcement of defeat against Sony’s PlayStation 4 and an admission that bundling the system with the peripheral was not as necessary to the experience as they had claimed during its reveal last year. Well, it seems that not only was the latter statement true, but the Xbox One architecture may actually benefit from the removal of its all-seeing, all-hearing appendage.
According to Xbox’s Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer, Yusuf Mehdi, the Kinect — like the game operating system — is given a set reservation of CPU power within the architecture. With the Kinect now not bundled with every Xbox One, what will happen with that set space of CPU power?
Mehdi says this:
“We are in discussions with our game publishers about what we might do in this space and we will have more to talk about soon.”
This means the processing power set aside for the Kinect may now be implemented into game operation. As we know, many of the multi-platform titles released since both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 went to market have always fared better on the PlayStation 4 in terms of both graphical capabilities and speed. With this extra processing power diverted to the game operating system, the Xbox One may just catch up to the PlayStation 4.
What do you think: Is the lack of the Kinect going to make for a better Xbox One experience? Let us know in the comments.
Published: May 15, 2014 02:00 am