Kinect for the Xbox 360 turned out to be a bit of a success for Microsoft after it launched with millions of units sold and games like Dance Central and Kinect Sports selling millions of copies. Still, it didn't quite live up to the hype of the early commercials but a report released on Monday suggests that the next Kinect will be accurate enough to read lips and facial expressions.
According to Eurogamer sources, Kinect 2 will be bundled in with the next-gen Xbox and be powerful enough to read lip read, track the pitch and volume of player voices, detect facial characteristics to determine emotional state, and determine in which direction players are facing.
Part of the reason that Microsoft's next motion sensor will be able to do this is that it will not be hamstrung by the USB connection that limited the amount of data that it could transfer to the Xbox 360.
"It can be cabled straight through on any number of technologies that just take phenomenally high res data straight to the main processor and straight to the main RAM and ask, what do you want to do with it?" the Eurogamer source said.
Microsoft already announced a refresh to the Kinect hardware that will only be available for Windows PCs.
Rumors on when the next Xbox will launch range from late 2012 to 2013. With the Wii U launching for the 2012 holidays, both Sony and Microsoft likely don't want to be too far behind in releasing new console hardware.
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Via: Eurogamer
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