Xbox One November 2015 Update: Kinect Feature Removed; Changes Announced

The new Xbox One update for Nov. 2015 will remove the Kinect gesture support for the dashboard navigation, according to Gamespot.

A few days ago, Microsoft has announced the new update for November. It features the new backwards compatibility feature which lets you play certain Xbox 360 games on your Xbox One console. The company has also announced the first batch of Xbox360 games that can be played with the backwards compatibility feature.

The upcoming new Xbox One Experience update now has another change in the list. The new update will remove the support for gesture-based dashboard navigation through Kinect, according to sources. The decision was made because the feature was rarely used by Xbox One Kinect owners.

"On gestures, when we looked at the New Xbox One Experience, we wanted to prioritize features that customers were asking for, plus areas of improvement from the existing Xbox One UI," said Microsoft's Mike Ybarra in an interview. "Then, we wanted to look at the use-case model of features that take a lot of investment and say, 'Is it worth continuing to invest in that area?'"

The voice commands are still around with the Kinect, according to EnGadget.

"With gestures, the reality was the usage was very, very low," said Ybarra. "So for now, we've cut that from the New Xbox One Experience."

For games, Kinect gestures will still work and also in apps that use them. Several games have been tested and the Kinect gestures still work with them.

A lot of people are still using the Kinect camera for other purposes which are for non-gaming. Microsoft's support to the Kinect will continue with the introduction of Cortana voice search through a future Xbox One update which will be coming next year, according to sources.

The Xbox One update for Nov. 2015 will still make huge changes to the Xbox One Experience with new UI and more features like the backwards compatibility feature.