Today Microsoft announced via a Q & A with Microsoft’s Chief Product Officer for the Xbox One – Marc Whitten – that the Xbox One will function with the Kinect unplugged. This goes against the original message where the Kinect was required, as well as the 24 hour Internet check in.
Here is a quote from the IGN Q & A:
“That said, like online, the console will still function if Kinect isn’t plugged in, although you won’t be able to use any feature or experience that explicitly uses the sensor.”
Also, as Polygon picked up, there was a thread in the NeoGAF forums in which Albert Penello who is the senior director of product planning at Microsoft who echoed Whitten’s message:
“The thing we all understood, and hence this change, is that there are some scenarios where people just may not be comfortable,” he wrote. “We wanted people to be 100 percent comfortable, so we allow the sensor to be unplugged. And clearly the ‘it dropped’ scenario is possible.”
There you have it folks, the Kinect is not required to be plugged in and while you will loose Kinect features, the Xbox One will be able to turn on and play your games as the Xbox 360 does now.
