The upcoming Xbox One update that is coming out tomorrow will be getting rid of Kinect gesture support for navigating the dashboard.
A Microsoft representative confirmed with Gamespot that removing Kinect gesture support was done to “focus on fan-requested features resulting in a faster and more social Xbox One experience“.
Bear in mind, this just means you cannot use the Kinect anymore to navigate the Xbox One dahsboard. You can still use the peripheral to play Kinect games, “biometric sing-in, and video calls with Skype for Xbox One.”
Microsoft’s Mike Ybarra elaborated more on this speaking to Windows Central. The amount of people that used gestures to navigate the dashboard was “very, very low“. To improve the UI for other users, they decided to get rid of it.
However, Ybarra said gesture controls could return depending on how many ask for it to come back. Although the number of people that own the Xbox One Kinect device isn’t large anymore. This is because it’s an optional device now since Microsoft dropped Kinect only Xbox One bundles last year.
The new update will be available to all console owners from November 12th. Apart from an updated UI, it will also come with backwards compatibility support for over 100 Xbox 360 games.
