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Epic tells Fortnite players on Xbox One to unplug their Kinect

Epic tells Fortnite players on Xbox One to unplug their Kinect

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Kinect never gets a break

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Kinect

If you’ve noticed some issues with Fortnite on Xbox One today then Kinect could be to blame. Epic Games is encouraging Fortnite players to disconnect their Kinect camera due to “stability issues” when starting up Fortnite. The issues appear to have started happening today, just as the 10th season of Fortnite, dubbed season X, began. “We’re investigating a fix for this issue, but players can work around it in the meantime by disconnecting their Kinect,” says Epic Games on Twitter.

It’s not clear why Kinect is causing Fortnite issues, especially as it has been five years since Microsoft stopped reserving GPU resources for Kinect. Microsoft used to reserve 10 percent of GPU bandwidth for Kinect, before unlocking this for developers to use as they wish.

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Fortnite season X

Microsoft officially admitted Kinect was well and truly dead back in 2017. The software maker stopped manufacturing the gaming accessory, and every Xbox One on the market is sold without it now. Microsoft’s Kinect for Xbox 360 became the fastest-selling consumer device back in 2011, winning recognition from Guinness World Records at the time. Its introduction on the Xbox One wasn’t as widely celebrated, thanks to a $100 price gap over the PlayStation 4 and some privacy fears.

Microsoft has now shrunk Kinect into a $399 cloud-powered PC peripheral. The Azure Kinect Developer Kit (DK) includes Microsoft’s latest AI sensors found in the HoloLens 2 headset. It allows developers to use less power in apps, and use AI on depth images or pair multiple sensors together to create a 3D map of a room.