It’s clear that Microsoft gave up long ago on getting a Kinect into every home that has an Xbox One under the TV. It was mandatory, then it wasn’t but Microsoft kept pushing it, then they stopped pushing it and nobody talks about it anymore. With the launch of the Xbox One S, Microsoft has gone a step further and removed the Kinect port from the console.
What does that mean for anyone genuinely still interested in purchasing a Kinect? It means the price of entry increases by $50.
The reason Microsoft has removed the Kinect port from the Xbox One S is because they wanted to make the console as small as possible while managing to fit the power brick inside. So it made sense to remove the port not many people were using. Kinect support still needs to be offered, though, so Microsoft has decided to achieve that using an adapter you plug into one of the available USB 3.0 ports on the new machine.
The adapter used is the same as the one used for Kinect on Windows, which means it will cost $49.99. There is some good news for existing Kinect owners, though. If you already own an Xbox One and an Xbox One Kinect, Microsoft is willing to give you the Kinect adapter for free when you purchase an Xbox One S. And so they should seeing as you’ve bought their console twice and their expensive motion control peripheral.
Getting one for free does require some work, though. Microsoft requires you to order it, and to do that they need to know the serial numbers of all three devices (Xbox One, Kinect, One S) before agreeing to send you one.
For most gamers, this is a non-issue. The Kinect is not a device you want, and if losing the port meant the Kinect got a lot smaller, all the better. Now we just have to hope the Xbox One S is quiet or has got even quieter then the Xbox One, and that Microsoft hasn’t introduced any heat issues through its desire to squeeze all those components into a much smaller space.