Today during an interview with Polygon, it was announced that Cortana will not require a Kinect along with some other Kinect news. Chief marketing officer for Xbox, Mike Nichols, said that when Cortana comes to Xbox one you will be able to use it with a headset and a microphone or by typing in your search. He also stated that the voice or text search AI will be available to preview members sometime this year.
This is great news for Xbox one owners without a Kinect that don’t want to invest money into a new Kinect device, which is $149.50 on amazon. Xbox one launched in November of 2013, Kinect was a integral part of the console. Since Microsoft made bundles that didn’t include Kinect, support for the device have dwindled substantially. Cortana will release to all Xbox one owners sometime early next year.
